Alexander N. Ortega, Ryan M. McKenna, Brent A. Langellier, Héctor E. Alcalá, Dylan H. Roby

To assess differences in healthcare access, utilization, and experiences among Latino children in California by parental citizenship status and language use. Data are from the 2011 and 2012 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) public use child files. A total of 2,841 interviews of parents of Latino children under the age of twelve years were conducted. Analyses were conducted to determine the associations between access (usual of source of care, delay in receiving needed care, health insurance), utilization (physician visits in past year, emergency department visits) and experiences (doctor listens, doctor explains instructions clearly, communication by telephone or email) by parental citizenship status and household language use after adjusting for confounders. In multivariate analyses, there were no significant differences in access to care by parental citizenship status. Children with two non-citizen parents had fewer doctor visits and were less likely to go to the ED in the past year than those with two citizen parents. Among children with one or two non-citizen parents, their parents reported worse experiences in care than those with two citizen parents. Similar results were observed for language use. Parents of children in bilingual and Spanish-only households were less likely to report that their children's doctors explained things clearly, and parents in Spanish-only households were less likely to communicate by telephone or email than those in English-only households. Health policy should focus on provider-parent communication to ensure healthcare equity for Latino children whose parents are not citizens or do not speak English.