Latino Health in the Texas Panhandle: Policy Implications

This study focused on the geospatial aspects of Latino health in the Texas Panhandle from 2011 to 2016. The underpinning question became: As more Panhandle counties became increasingly Latino during the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century, what have been the ramifications for Latino health care and health outcomes in the fifty-four counties? Latino-majority counties worsened between 2011 and 2016 in all six health indicators: children in poverty, adults uninsured, primary care physician ratio, adult obesity, diabetes, and teen birthrate. In 2011 the eleven Latino-majority counties did not statistically differ from eleven non-Hispanic, white-majority counties in the six health indicators. In 2016 the seventeen Latino-majority counties differed statistically from seventeen white-majority counties for primary care physician ratio, percentage of diabetes, and teen birthrate, all three of which were worse for Latinos.