The Restricted Data Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is happy to announce that Chenoa Allen has a new NCHS approved project entitled:
Estimating the effects of Arizona-style omnibus immigration policies on Latino children’s health, access to health care, and program participation.
Chenoa Allen received her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2016. Currently she holds the Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Health Disparities Research Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Here is her project profile:
What is the broad, overarching research agenda that brought you to the WiscRDC?
My research focuses on how state and local immigration-related policies affect the well-being of children in immigrant families.
What are the specific questions that you are using to pursue this agenda? What do you hope to accomplish?
Between 2006—2011, 10 states passed omnibus immigration-related laws that substantially restricted rights for undocumented immigrants. Researchers suggested these laws reduced access to healthcare among US citizen Latino children, but preliminary studies were not methodologically rigorous. For this project, I use NHIS data to examine how state omnibus immigration laws affect health, health care access, and uptake of means-tested benefits for Latino children in immigrant families. So far, through analyses conducted previously at the NCHS RDC in Atlanta, I have shown that passage of an omnibus policy did not restrict children’s enrollment in public insurance (Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)). My next analyses will examine the impact of these laws on uptake of other means-tested benefits, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.
What are the data you are using to pursue these questions?
I am using National Health Interview Survey data from the National Center for Health Statistics.
The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is the principal source of information on the health of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States and is one of the major data collection programs of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The National Health Survey Act of 1956 provided for a continuing survey and special studies to secure accurate and current statistical information on the amount, distribution, and effects of illness and disability in the United States and the services rendered for or because of such conditions. The survey referred to in the Act, now called the National Health Interview Survey, was initiated in July 1957. Since 1960, the survey has been conducted by NCHS, which was formed when the National Health Survey and the National Vital Statistics Division were combined.
Are you collaborating with any other researchers, in Madison, or otherwise?
I am collaborating with Deb Ehrenthal and Jenna Nobles here at UW-Madison, and with Clea McNeely and Donald Bruce at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.