Hispanic Family Facts: National Minority Health Month and a Closer Look at Latino Male Health Insurance Coverage

Latino boys begin life with a healthy start; for example, most have a healthy birth weight and have been breastfed. They maintain some health advantages into adolescence, including a greater avoidance of risk behaviors like smoking or drinking. At the same time, racial and ethnic disparities in other critical health indicators begin to disadvantage Latino boys in early childhood, and persist into young adulthood. During this National Minority Health Month, we call attention to health insurance coverage—an area where the Latino disadvantage is especially stark.

From early childhood to young adulthood, Latino males are less likely than their white and black peers to have health insurance coverage. Differences in coverage are smallest in early childhood and increase into young adulthood, when they are most pronounced. By young adulthood, only 64 percent of Hispanic males are insured, compared with 85 percent of white and 75 percent of black males. By the time many Hispanic young men are establishing themselves in the labor market and beginning their own families, one-third are vulnerable to the stress associated with both expected and unexpected health events.

Read our report, A National Portrait of the Health and Education of Hispanic Boys and Young Men, to learn more about how Latino males are faring in terms of their health and how that compares to their white and black peers.

More Hispanic Family Facts