California's Young Hispanic Children With Asthma: Disparities in Health Care Access and Utilization of Health Care Services

 Research is needed to examine what factors determine the health care utilization patterns of Hispanic children with asthma. The purpose of this study was to profile California's Hispanic children with asthma, from 1 to 5 years of age, including their demographics, their health care access, their asthma severity, their disability due to asthma, and their health care utilization patterns. An overall sample of 149 children (N = 149) was used, whose parents reported that they were Hispanic and had a current MD diagnosis of asthma. A secondary analysis of parental reports of their children's asthma was done using the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), 2001. In the past 12 months, young Hispanic children with asthma had increased emergency department (ED) use due to their asthma (58.5%) as compared to visits to their regular care provider, increased hospitalizations (77.1%), and took daily asthma control medication (53.4%). Most children had mild asthma severity (43.6%) and sometimes had their physical activity limited (26.8%) due to asthma. California's young, Hispanic children with asthma have high utilization of health care services due to asthma.