The health interview survey and minority health

This article emphasizes the advantages and disadvantages of the National Center for Health Statistics Health Interview Surveys (HIS) when applied to the needs of ethnic minorities at the local level. While HIS gives information on health status of minorities and their use of services at the national level, this information is of limited help to providers in local communities. In any national survey, the numbers of minority persons sampled will be very small and heterogeneous populations sharing a common language (for example, Spanish) may be aggregated though their characteristics may differ widely. Certain groups may be missed or their numbers greatly underestimated if they do not live in settled households, which form the unit of HIS. Pertinent examples are migrant farm workers and young adult black urban males. Other possible problems arise in the use of proxy respondents, in the HIS definition of acute illness, and in the rather infrequent use of linkage studies. While there are a number of important ways by which HIS surveys may be made more effective, special national surveys of specific minority groups and in-depth local surveys are needed to fill gaps in meeting minority needs.