Posts tagged seniors

More Seniors Getting Pneumonia Shots, But Hispanics Lag Behind

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1 year ago
by admin in ,

The overall proportion of Americans age 65 and older who have ever been vaccinated against pneumonia, a leading killer of seniors, increased from 53% to 60% between 2000 and 2008, according to new figures from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

However, Hispanic, lower-income, and inner-city seniors were less likely to be vaccinated:

  • Just 37% of Hispanic seniors reported ever being vaccinated against pneumonia, vs. 65% of white seniors and 45-46% of Asian and blacks seniors.
  • Almost two thirds (65%) of high-income seniors reported ever being vaccinated against pneumonia compared with less than half (46%) of poor seniors.
  • Only 52% of seniors who live in a large inner-city area, where residents tend to be low-income and minority, reported ever being vaccinated, compared with 64% of seniors who live in medium-size cities.

This AHRQ News and Numbers summary is based on data from 2010 National Healthcare Quality Report, which examines Americans’ access to, and quality of, health care.

2010 Census: U.S. Hispanic Population Grew Four Times Faster Than Total Population

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1 year ago
by admin in

The U.S. Census Bureau this week released a 2010 Census brief on the nation’s Hispanic population, which shows the Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and 2010 and accounted for more than half of the total U.S. population increase of 27.3 million.

Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43%, or four times the nation’s 9.7% growth rate.

The Hispanic Population: 2010 brief looks at an important part of our nation’s changing ethnic diversity with a particular focus on Hispanic origin groups, such as Mexican, Dominican and Cuban.

About three-quarters of Hispanics in the United States reported as Mexican, Puerto Rican or Cuban origin in the 2010 Census. Mexican origin was the largest group, representing 63% of the total U.S. Hispanic population — up from 58% in 2000. This group increased by 54% and saw the largest numeric change (11.2 million), growing from 20.6 million in 2000 to 31.8 million in 2010. Mexicans accounted for about three-fourths of the 15.2 million increase in the total Hispanic population between 2000 and 2010.

New Census data also shows a growing racial/ethnic divide by age.

Nationally, 80% of seniors are white and only in a few counties are most seniors people of color. But the younger population looks vastly different: the majority of babies born in the last two years were nonwhite, and across the country—from our largest cities to suburbs, small towns, and rural areas—young Americans are increasingly people of color, according to PolicyLink.

Check out PolicyLink’s new animated map illustrating here on this stark racial and generational divide:

A New Generation Gap? The Diverging Demographics of Seniors and Youth from PolicyLink on Vimeo.

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