Healthcare Key Findings November/December 2011

American Fathers

The American population includes 70.1 million fathers, 36% of whom are married and have children younger than 18 living at home. Some 22% of married fathers have three or more children under 18.

Out of the 1.8 million single fathers, 46% are divorced, 30% have never been married, 19% are separated, and 6% are widowed. Single fathers account for 15% of single parents. One in 10 (9%) are raising three or more children and 39% have incomes of $50,000 or more.

During 2010, there were 154,000 U.S. stay-at-home dads, defined as married fathers with children under the age of 15 who have been out of the labor force for at least one year for the primary purpose of taking care of their children while their wives work outside the home.

Hispanic Young Adults Lack Health Insurance

Young Hispanic adults (ages 20-29) are less likely than their non-Hispanic peers to have health insurance. Some 54% of Hispanics in this age category were uninsured in 2009, compared to 34% of non-Hispanic Blacks and 24% of non-Hispanic Whites.

Most young adults with health insurance – whether private or through Medicaid – had regular doctors or other sources of routine medical care with little differences by race or ethnicity. Of the uninsured, Hispanics (33%) were less likely than non-Hispanic Blacks (40%) or Whites (47%) to have regular sources of medical care.

Overall, only 61% of Hispanic young adults had visited doctors at least once in the prior year, compared to 76% of both non-Hispanic Whites and non-Hispanic Blacks.

Online Access to Doctors

The majority of U.S. adults (73%) say they would use a secure online communication portal to interact with their doctors’ offices. Half of these say they would change doctors to get this convenience: 29% of Boomers and 59% of Generation Y adults.

Patients say they want to interact online in a variety of ways. About one-half (51%) say they would use this communication to ask care-related questions, 81% want to make appointments, 68% would like to make prescription requests, 62% want to obtain lab results, 59% would complete medical forms, and 53% want to review and pay bills.

Bullets

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year more than 200,000 people are hospitalized due to influenza. Depending on the year, between 3,000 and 49,000 people die.
• One in ten Americans ages 18 and older (9.6%) have visited a hospital in the past month
• Some 69% of adults say they are more likely to patronize restaurants that offer locally produced foods.

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