Hispanics, Health Insurance and Health Care Access

/in /by

Six-in-ten Hispanic adults living in the United States who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents lack health insurance, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of a survey it conducted in 2007.1The nationwide survey offers a detailed look at the health insurance and health care access of an immigrant subgroup that has become a focus of attention in the current debate over health care reform.

Hispanics, Health Insurance and Health Care Access

Hispanics, Health Insurance and Health Care Access

The share of uninsured among this group (60%) is much higher than the share of uninsured among Latino adults who are legal permanent residents or citizens (28%), or among the adult population of the United States (17%).

Hispanic adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents tend to be younger and healthier than the adult U.S. population and are less likely than other groups to have a regular health care provider. Just 57% say there is a place they usually go when they are sick or need advice about their health, compared with 76% of Latino adults who are citizens or legal permanent residents and 83% of the adult U.S. population.

Overall, four-in-ten (41%) non-citizen, non-legal permanent resident Hispanics state that their usual provider is a community clinic or health center. These centers are designed primarily as “safety nets” for vulnerable populations and are funded by a variety of sources, including the federal government, state governments and private foundations, as well as reimbursements from patients, based upon a sliding scale (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008).

Some 15% of Latino adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents report that they use private doctors, hospital outpatient facilities or health maintenance organizations when they are sick or need advice about their health. Traditionally, patients in these settings are required to pay for their care, either via insurance or out of pocket.

An additional 6% of Latino adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents report that they usually go to an emergency room when they are sick or need advice about their health. Most emergency rooms are required by law to provide care to all patients. Patients are responsible for payment for emergency room services, but in some instances the Federal government partially reimburses hospitals for expenses the patients cannot afford.
Some 37% of Latino adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents have no usual health care provider. More than one-fourth (28%) of the people in this group indicate that financial limitations prevent them from having a usual provider — 17% report that their lack of insurance is the primary reason, while 12% cite high medical costs in general. However, a majority (56%) say they do not have a usual provider because they simply do not need one. An additional 5% state that difficulty in navigating the U.S. health care system prevents them from having a usual provider.

Undocumented immigrants and their children comprise 17% of the estimated 46 million Americans who lack health insurance.(2) According to Pew Hispanic Center estimates, 11.9 million undocumented immigrants were living in the U.S. in 2008. Three-quarters (76%) of these undocumented immigrants were Latinos.

Overall, about one-quarter of all adult Latinos are undocumented. Pew Hispanic Center analyses of Current Population Survey data indicate that approximately 98% of Hispanic immigrants who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents are undocumented. So, while the survey classification used in this report does not line up exactly with the Latino undocumented population, the two groups are nearly identical.

Health Status

The Latino population in the U.S. is relatively young, and Latino adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents are younger still. Some 43% of adult Latinos who are not citizens or legal permanent residents are younger than age 30, compared with 27% of Hispanic adults who are citizens or legal permanent residents and 22% of the adult U.S. population. The youthfulness of this population contributes to its relative healthiness. Among adult Latinos who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents, about one-third (34%) report that they either missed work, or spent at least half a day in bed over the past year, because of illness or injury. The rate rises to 42% among adult Latinos who are citizens or legal permanent residents and to 52% among the U.S. adult population.

Experiences in the Health Care System

Three-fourths (76%) of Latino adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents report that the quality of medical care they received in the past year was excellent or good. This is similar to the proportion of adult Latino citizens and legal permanent residents (78%) who express satisfaction with their recent health care.

However, when asked a separate question — whether they had received any poor medical treatment in the past five years — adult Latinos who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents are less likely (16%) to report any problems than are Latinos who are citizens or legal permanent residents (24%).

Among those Latinos who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents who report receiving poor medical treatment in the past five years, a plurality (46%) state that they believed their accent or the way they spoke English contributed to that poor care. A similar share (43%) believed that their inability to pay for care contributed to their poor treatment. More than one-third (37%) felt that their race or ethnicity played a part in their poor care, and one-fourth (25%) attributed the unsatisfactory treatment to something in their medical history.
When asked about their most recent medical appointment, three-fourths (76%) of Latino adults who are neither citizens nor legal permanent residents report that they felt comforted or relieved by the visit, and 69% report feeling reassured. Much smaller proportions left their most recent medical visit feeling frustrated (31%) or confused (27%).

1. Except where noted, results are based on the 2007 Pew Hispanic Center/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Latino Health Survey, in which a nationally representative sample of 4,013 Latinos were surveyed from July 16 to Sept. 23, 2007 (see Livingston, Minushkin and Cohn, 2008).
2. March 2009 Current Population Survey data show that 15% of American adults and children lack health insurance.
By Gretchen Livingston, Senior Researcher, Pew Hispanic Center

New Unified Digital Audience Measurement Service

/in /by

New, Unified Audience Measurement Capabilities to Provide Publishers a Deeper Understanding of Audience Reach and Advertisers the Intelligence Needed for More Effective Media Planning

Omniture and comScore to Deliver Unified Digital Audience Measurement Service

Omniture, Inc., a leading provider of online business optimization software, and comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced a strategic partner relationship to deliver a unified digital audience measurement system. Specifically designed to meet the unique demands of the digital advertising world, the offering will combine the power of Omniture’s Web analytics with comScore’s new Media Metrix 360 hybrid audience measurement to help provide publishers and advertisers with a unified and comprehensive view of online audiences.

Two of the keys to implementing a successful digital marketing initiative are the ability to measure and analyze online marketing performance and to capture accurate views of audience reach across multiple information sources. To date, publishers and advertisers use two primary sources for measuring the impact of digital advertising – Web analytics and panel-based audience measurement. Because the two measurement methodologies have disparate objectives and employ different data collection technologies, the resulting dissimilar metrics can cause confusion and uncertainty among publishers and advertisers. This strategic partner relationship blends these two methodologies in a highly automated way to create a unified approach for audience measurement designed to enable publishers to represent themselves in a more comprehensive manner to advertisers, and for advertisers to better optimize their media planning with the benefit of more extensive media reach data.

This relationship between Omniture and comScore will enable organizations to unify their online and panel-based audience measurement information, providing more consistent and more comprehensive standard metrics. With the combined offering, publishers and advertisers will be able to automate data integration and reconciliation, eliminate the need for publishers to implement time consuming multiple data collection methods and reduce the labor-intensive steps needed to deliver unified audience measurement.

“We are excited to join forces with Omniture, a leader in quality and innovation in the Web analytics industry, to bring this solution to the marketplace,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, comScore President & CEO. “As leading providers of Internet audience measurement and Web analytics, comScore and Omniture are working to provide the marketplace a much-needed solution for consistent Web-wide measurement. This relationship will deliver to our customers the solution that they have been seeking, thus helping to promote and accelerate the usage of digital marketing intelligence for delivering actionable business results and competitive advantage. We believe it will also help the industry overcome concerns of inconsistent measurement of digital audiences and promote further adoption of digital media advertising.”

“Since the rise of digital advertising, advertisers and publishers alike have sought ways to reconcile their Web analytics and panel-based measurement data to establish a unified measure of online audiences,” said Josh James, Omniture CEO and co-founder. “With this relationship, Omniture and comScore will enable publishers who have rich, highly targeted audience segments to reliably demonstrate their value to advertisers and also help advertisers find these attractive consumer segments. The combined offering will provide advertisers and publishers with a common currency to measure the value of online audiences across an ever-increasing number of digital channels.”

Tangible Customer BenefitsToday and in the Future

The strategic partner relationship is intended to allow joint Omniture and comScore customers to use Omniture tags to collect and share information with Media Metrix 360 using Omniture Genesis integration technology, quickly bypassing the normal implementation process for Media Metrix 360.

The relationship also opens up the possibility of joint product initiatives that will leverage the granularity of the Omniture site-specific data with the Web-wide view of Internet user behavior provided by comScore.

Availability of Unified Digital Audience Measurement Service

comScore and Omniture customers interested in the new service should contact their respective account managers.

Industry Support

“The partnership between Omniture and comScore represents a significant step forward for the digital media measurement community,” said David McBride, director of Business Intelligence at Comcast Interactive Media. “To have these two leaders forge an alliance and provide the industry with an integrated solution for server and audience measurement will help us better understand and improve upon our digital performance.”

“Despite digital being the most measurable medium, it has unique dynamics that make measurement significantly more challenging than simply counting clicks,” said Larry Gelfand, senior vice president, digital sales and business development, National Hockey League. “Both census-level web analytics and person-based audience measurement services are essential to evaluating digital media performance, and to finally see these two measurement technologies brought into alignment is an extraordinarily positive step for those invested in the digital medium.”

“Publishers have always relied on both site analytics and audience measurement data for understanding the performance of our web properties,” said Tomer Strolight, president, Torstar Digital. “Even though the two measurement platforms are used for different purposes, the disparities between the two have been somewhat disconcerting. This effort to harmonize the two data sets and understand the source of the disparities will give everyone in the industry a better understanding of their data and give us more confidence in the decisions we make based on these metrics.”

“The partnership between comScore and Omniture has the potential to move the measurement of online media several steps forward,” said Scott McDonald, SVP Research, Conde Nast Publications. “For more than a decade, we have fretted about – and sometimes quarreled about — the discrepancies between the audience estimates derived from third-party panels like comScore’s and those derived from web site analytics systems like Omniture’s. This collaboration represents the most significant effort to date to harmonize the two approaches and give the industry, at last, a common and convergent set of numbers.”

“It is terrific to see these two industry giants collaborate on a solution to this longstanding problem of reconciling panel and server data,” said Patrick Lauzon, executive vice president, SUN Media (Quebecor Media Co.). “This is yet another example of comScore and Omniture being leaders in the field and providing the mission critical solutions the industry has been calling for.”

“The digital industry has grappled with the differences between panel and server information for many years,” said Graham Mosey, SVP and General Manager, CanWest Digital. “We were one of the first comScore clients to support the Media Metrix 360 project because we saw the obvious benefits. The comScore-Omniture partnership eliminates the implementation burden and will expedite the expansion of this new form of measurement. Having as many publishers as possible involved can only be good for the industry. This is a groundbreaking development which is extremely exciting.”

Source: comScore

Single Men and Single Women Perception of Dating and Weight Differ

/in /by

New Poll Shows Significant Discrepancy between Single Men’ and Single Females’ Perception of Dating and Weight

New Poll Shows Significant Discrepancy between Single Males' and Single Females' Perception of Dating and Weight

New Poll Shows Significant Discrepancy between Single Males’ and Single Females’ Perception of Dating and Weight

Kirstie Alley, Jessica Simpson, Kelly Clarkson and Oprah have spent years yo-yo dieting, but would they work so hard to be thin if they knew men love them despite the extra pounds? These days, Fat is Fabulous, with reality shows about a heavy bachelor searching for his heavy set sweetheart and zaftig women competing in dance-offs, bringing in big ratings numbers for the Networks. So when Fox’s More to Love Bachelor, Luke Conley, professed to loving big, beautiful women, leading online dating sites Date.com http://www.date.com), Matchmaker.com http://www.matchmaker.com), and Amor.com http://www.amor.com), decided to poll its members to see what they think about dating overweight men or women.

The results were surprising, perhaps even astounding. A whopping 85% of single men professed their love for heavier women with more than 80% of men feeling that overweight women are less bitchy than thin women. These single men thought that overweight women appreciate the attention that men give them and are more loving because of it.

Since the beginning of time, men and women have failed to understand each other and this latest poll shows that this continues. While the majority of men have no issue with an overweight woman, 90% of women think men find extra weight unattractive, and that heavy women have a much harder time dating.

85% of Single Men Would Date Heavy Women; 90% of Single Women Feel Men Can’t See Past a Few Extra Pounds, States Date.com

“These poll results show such a significant discrepancy in the way men feel about dating overweight women, and what women think men are looking for when it comes to relationships. Unfortunately, these types of misconceptions between the sexes are extremely common, and result in a lot of missed dating and relationship opportunities,” said Shira Zwebner, Relationship Advisor for Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com. “At the end of the day, what’s important to men is that the women they date be open and receptive to being loved and to giving love, not whether or not they’re a perfect size zero. And once overweight women realize that men aren’t just looking for a thin woman, they’ll have a lot more self-confidence when dating, which will ultimately result in more successful romances.”

In a new survey of thousands of male online daters nationwide, conducted in the months of July and August 2009, we asked: Fox’s hit reality show this Summer, More to Love, is about an overweight guy looking for love amongst overweight women. America is one of the fattest nations on the planet; do you prefer dating skinny or overweight women?

Following are the complete results:

A couple of extra pounds is fine by me: 85%

Thin: 15%

We also asked our male members the following: Why do you prefer to date a heavy woman?

Following are the complete results:

I find that overweight women are less bitchy than thin women, they appreciate the attention men give them and are more loving because of it: 80%

Because it matters what’s on the inside, not on the outside: 68.7%

Heavier women are better in bed: 54.2%

Overweight women have more fun, especially those who are happy in their own skin: 12.5%

All of the above: 34.6%

We also asked our male members the following: And if you would date an overweight woman, how heavy can she be?

Following are the complete results:

She can be obese; it doesn’t matter as long as I love her: 79.9%

A couple of pounds overweight, but she should be working on losing it: 63.8%

20 pounds is my limit: 42.5%

I wouldn’t date someone who is overweight: 20.5%

In a new survey of thousands of female online daters nationwide, we asked: Fox’s hit reality show this Summer, More to Love, is about an overweight guy looking for love amongst overweight women. America is one of the fattest nations on the Planet; do you think overweight women have a harder time dating?

Following are the complete results:

Absolutely, men can’t see beyond a few extra pounds: 90.0%

Not really, they’re just single like the rest of us: 10.0%

We also asked our female members the following: Would you date an overweight guy?

Following are the complete results:

Yes, I love a teddy bear, I feel protected by a bigger guy: 87.6%

Depends on how overweight he is, I’d like someone who is health conscious and not a couch potato: 74.3%

No, I want a guy who is fit and keeps in shape: 29.8%

This summer, Date.com asked people on the street what appeals most to them in a mate: looks, brains, physique, money or confidence? Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URRxN_vA0C8 to view America’s answers!

About Avalanche, LLC

Avalanche operates several leading online dating websites, including Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com. Date.com launched on Valentine’s Day 1997 and has become one of the world’s most popular dating websites. First started as a Bulletin Board System in 1986, Matchmaker.com is the oldest online dating site. It was acquired by Avalanche in 2006 and targets those singles seeking serious relationships. Amor.com, launched in 2007, is a rapidly growing destination for Hispanic singles. Avalanche hosts more than 10 million members worldwide, with the sites adding over 100,000 members each month. Additional information is available at http://www.date.com

Source: Avalanche.com

People still prefer real-life recommendations to online

/in /by

Word of Mouth and Viral Marketing

Word of Mouth and Viral Marketing: real-life recommendations preferred?

Word of Mouth and Viral Marketing: real-life recommendations preferred?

Referring a product or service is not a new idea, it’s been around as long as people have—but is the way people make recommendations changing with the times? Despite increased online activity, new research from Mintel shows real-life recommendations are still more influential to consumers than those received online.
Mintel’s exclusive consumer survey showed most people who bought a product or service based off a recommendation did so on a referral from a friend/relative or husband/wife/partner (34% and 25%, respectively). Only 5% of respondents bought based on the recommendation of a blogger, the same for a chat room.

“It’s interesting to find that as much time as we spend online, we still prefer a personal recommendation from someone we know and trust,” states Chris Haack, senior analyst at Mintel. “Young adults are somewhat more likely to turn to the Internet for advice and referrals, but even they listen to their peers first.”

Most people base a recommendation on price and convenience, according to Mintel. Especially in the current economic climate, where shoppers are compelled to find the lowest price, it’s not surprising that more than 64% of respondents state that price drove them to recommend a product or service, while quality (55%) and convenience (33%) follow behind.

Mintel reports that Asian and Hispanic respondents are considerably more likely to recommend a product they saw advertised. Asians (14%) and Hispanics (10%) are also more likely to report being influenced by bloggers to purchase a specific product or service.

“The sheer number of people that purchase based on recommendations proves marketers need to pay attention to word of mouth,” states Chris Haack. “It’s becoming easier for businesses to lose control of their marketing messages, so companies need to carefully monitor and respond to consumer conversations about their brands.”

Source: http://www.mintel.com

Snacking differences between Hispanics, general population

/in /by

Snacking Differences: Hispanic Parents More Likely to Reward Kids with Snacks

Study highlights snacking differences between Hispanics, general population

Study highlights snacking differences between Hispanics, general population

Dipped, topped or eaten plain, America loves snacks. But new research from Mintel shows that not all Americans snack the same. Hispanics, the fastest growing population in the US, differ significantly in their snacking habits.
Hispanic adults are twice as likely as non-Hispanics to reward their children’s good behavior with salty snacks (41% versus 19%). But salty snack consumption among Hispanic adults is low, possibly due to traditional food preferences. Of five snacks-potato chips, pretzels, popcorn, nuts and corn/tortilla chips/cheese snacks-only 65% of Hispanics report eating three or more regularly (versus 80% of the general population).

Other key snacking differences findings

  • Hispanics emphasize mealtime, with snacks often perceived as appetite-spoilers. Mintel found Hispanics more interested in packages with ’small portions’ than the general population
  • Frozen snack usage is extremely low among less acculturated Hispanics, but more acculturated Hispanics eat them at the same rate as other Americans
  • Hispanic children show higher preference for healthy snacks like yogurt, cheese, raw veggies and nuts than non-Hispanic children

’Manufacturers need to understand that Hispanic’s eating habits are not the same as the general population’s,’ explains Leylha Ahuile, multicultural expert at Mintel. ’Even among Hispanics, we see huge variety in snacking, eating and drinking tendencies.’ Ahuile emphasizes the importance of not viewing Hispanics as one homogenous group. ’Understanding acculturation and how Hispanics differ from one another is key for companies hoping to tap into this rapidly growing market.’

Source: http://www.mintel.com