Key takeaways
*The California Health Interview Survey added more than 50 questions on topics including gambling, housing discrimination, adolescents’ sexual orientation and unintended pregnancy.
*Survey data have been used for more than two decades to help inform advocacy and policy.
*Almost 10% of Black or African American adults in California reported experiencing housing discrimination in the last two years, compared with about 2.3% of white adults.
*Though the overall proportion of adults reporting serious psychological distress was returning to pre-pandemic levels, this was not consistent for all racial and ethnic groups.
Differences in race and ethnicity, income level and sexual orientation and gender identity continued in 2023 to be linked to differences in equitable experiences across a range of health-related issues affecting Californians, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research’s latest California Health Interview Survey, or CHIS.
Housing discrimination was one of many topics added in 2023 to the nation’s largest state health survey, which since 2001 has collected data and highlighted gaps in health and health care access to help inform budgeting, advocacy and legislation. Collecting data about topics like discrimination and housing insecurity enhances researchers’ understanding of how people’s day-to-day experiences are associated with health outcomes.
Among adults, 4.6% said they experienced housing discrimination in the last two years. The data showed that 9.4% of Black or African American adults experienced housing discrimination, which was more than four times higher than white adults (2.3%). CHIS also showed that 7.6% of multiracial adults, 6.9% of Latinx adults and 2.5% of Asian adults experienced housing discrimination.
Adults who speak one or more languages other than English at home said they experienced housing discrimination at almost twice the proportion of adults who speak only English at home (6% versus 3.5%). People whose income was less than 200% of the federal poverty level ($60,000 for a family of four in 2023) experienced housing discrimination at more than twice the rate of people earning more than that (8% versus 3.1%), according to CHIS.
Other new topics included gambling, unintended pregnancy, adolescents’ college plans, adolescents’ sexual orientation and children’s gender identity, among others.
Gambling is associated with a risk of poor health outcomes and mental health problems
Researchers learned that about 25% of California adults said they gambled in the past year, and of those individuals, 6.7% reported they had symptoms of problem gambling.
“These new topics provide policymakers, researchers, journalists, community advocates and the public additional verified data to help them better understand the challenges facing California’s diverse population,” said Ninez Ponce, principal investigator of CHIS and director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, or CHPR. “CHIS data can serve as a critical resource to figure out which groups’ needs are not being met by current policies and programs.”
CHIS showed in 2023 that 51.8% of noncitizen adults, including those with green cards, were covered by Medi-Cal, up from 41.1% the previous year. In May 2022, the state expanded Medi-Cal — the program that provides health insurance to low-income Californians — to offer full benefits to qualifying adults 50 or older without regard to immigration status.
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