Abstract
A lack of healthcare coverage is of major concern. This study examines the risk factors associated with not having healthcare coverage, with special attention paid to nativity status. The population of interest consists of United States residents aged 18 to 65 years. Accordingly, the data are from the Current Population Survey Annual Demographic File, 1997. Information on healthcare coverage, nativity status, and other characteristics is available. Several techniques were employed to investigate the problem of uninsuredness, including the Logic of Elaboration and multivariate logistic regression. The analyses suggested that there exist a number of factors that increase one’s odds of being without healthcare coverage. A partial list of such factors includes the following: nonwhite, relatively young, male, economically disadvantaged, unemployed, not married, and foreign-born. Though odds are calculated in this study, these factors should be viewed as independent risks for lacking healthcare coverage. Risks such as these warrant consideration within the policymaking arena, so as to increase the likelihood that the overall health of all Americans will not be compromised.