Table 1.4.  Percent of persons without health insurance coverage, by age group and race/ethnicity: United States, 1997-2001

Age and Race/ethnicity	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Percent (standard error)
Less than 18 years Total Hispanic Non-Hispanic White Black	13.9 (0.36) 26.8 (0.89) 10.7 (0.43) 14.0 (0.87)	12.7 (0.34) 26.2 (0.81) 8.9 (0.37) 13.7 (0.85)	11.8 (0.32) 26.5 (0.87) 8.1 (0.36) 12.0 (0.81)	12.2 (0.32) 25.3 (0.84) 8.6 (0.38) 11.9 (0.79)	10.8 (0.34) 24.1 (0.89) 7.2 (0.37) 10.5 (0.86)
18-64 years Total Hispanic Non-Hispanic White Black	18.9 (0.23) 39.1 (0.77) 14.8 (0.26) 23.2 (0.63)	18.2 (0.27) 38.8 (0.95) 13.8 (0.29) 23.9 (0.64)	17.8 (0.26) 38.3 (0.87) 13.6 (0.27) 22.9 (0.77)	18.4 (0.26) 40.3 (0.87) 13.9 (0.28) 23.3 (0.56)	18.1 (0.26) 40.1 (0.77) 13.5 (0.27) 22.8 (0.68)

NOTES:  A person was defined as uninsured if he or she did not have any private health insurance, Medicaid, state-sponsored or other government-sponsored health plan, Medicare or military plan at the time of the interview.  A person was also defined as uninsured if he or she had only Indian Health Service coverage, or had only a private plan that paid for one type of service such as accidents or dental care.  The analysis excluded persons with unknown health insurance status (about 1% of respondents).  The data on health insurance status were cleaned and edited using an automated system based on logic checks and keyword searches.  For comparability, the estimates for all years were created using these same procedures.  The resulting estimates of persons not having health insurance coverage are generally 0.1 percentage point lower than those based on manual editing procedures used for the final data files.

DATA SOURCE:  Family Core component of the 1997-2001 National Health Interview Surveys.

Between 1997 and 2001, a significant decrease in the percent of children uninsured was seen in all the three racial/ethnic groups: from 26.8% to 24.1% among Hispanic children; from 14.0% to 10.5% among non-Hispanic black children; and from 10.7% to 7.2% among non-Hispanic white children.

The percent of non-Hispanic white persons aged 18-64 years who lacked health insurance coverage decreased slightly from 14.8% in 1997 to 13.5% in 2001.  The decrease, however, was not seen among Hispanic persons aged 18-64 years, and the slight decrease among non-Hispanic black persons aged 18-64 years was not statistically significant.

< Previous | Return to Early Release Measures | Next >

This page last reviewed June 29, 2007