In terms of health, white women are usually better off

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That finding may not be as notable as the fact that it’s still stubbornly true. A report released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation offers a state-by-state look at American women’s health. Among the key findings:

--Women of color fared worse than white women across a broad range of measures in almost every state, and in some states these disparities were quite stark. Some of the largest disparities were in the rates of new AIDS cases, late or no prenatal care, no insurance coverage, and lack of a high school diploma.

--For Hispanic women, access and utilization were consistent problems, even though they fared better on some health status indicators.

--Black women experienced consistently higher rates of health problems. At the same time they also had the highest screening rates of all racial and ethnic groups.

Here’s a quick by-the-numbers look at California. Of the state’s 11.2 million women ages 18-64, 45% are white, 32% are Hispanic, 14% are Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 6% are black.

Having employer-backed or private health insurance is obviously a marker of who has relatively easy access to care. Those numbers for California: 78% of white women, 71% of Asian women, 58% of black women and 48% of Hispanic women.

Here are stats on other states.

And here’s the full report, titled ‘Putting Women’s Health Care Disparities on the Map: Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities at the State Level.’

The conclusions state: ‘More than a decade after the Surgeon General’s call to eliminate health disparities, the data in this study underscore the work that still remains.’

--Tami Dennis