Table 1.

Sociodemographic characteristics across racial and ethnic groups among the Medicare population in 1996–1997.

Variables	Groups	Non-Hispanic Whites		Non-Hispanic Blacks		Hispanics
		No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Agea,b	<65	590	9.23	219	24.26	142	17.69
	65–74	2,502	49.50	435	45.96	387	52.80
	75–84	1,712	32.85	226	23.53	185	23.30
	>85	452	8.41	64	6.25	61	6.20
Gender	Female	3,151	56.63	604	58.29	474	57.78
	Male	2,318	43.37	379	41.71	328	42.22
Marital Statusa,b	Not Married	2,487	43.98	649	65.87	431	53.76
	Married	2,913	56.02	322	34.13	360	46.24
Private
Insurancea,b	No	1,906	32.03	662	64.24	586	68.54
	Yes	3,563	67.97	321	35.76	216	31.46
Medicaida,b	No	4,930	92.38	623	67.24	461	60.50
	Yes	539	7.62	360	32.76	341	39.50
Poverty	Poor	901	11.72	359	31.90	246	28.09
Categoriesa,b	Near poor	379	6.83	112	11.50	99	12.62
	Low income	1,038	20.56	187	20.90	161	19.28
	Middle Income	1,599	34.86	197	23.17	195	26.18
	High income	1,552	26.04	128	12.53	101	13.84
Highest Degreea,b	Lower than high school	2,023	36.31	561	56.59	528	63.00
	GED or High School	2,438	46.18	285	32.17	173	24.52
	Bachelor	427	8.07	37	5.28	41	8.40
	Master and higher	277	5.54	33	3.33	21	3.42
	Other	209	3.90	24	2.63	4	0.67
Regiona,b	Northeast	1,166	21.41	182	18.16	130	15.96
	Midwest	1,403	26.32	191	20.56	48	5.96
	South	1,676	34.02	491	51.02	335	43.12
	West	1,011	18.25	80	10.27	262	34.96
Metropolitan	No	1,586	25.48	199	19.66	108	9.10
Statistical Areab	Yes	3,671	74.52	745	80.34	667	90.90
Self-perceived	Excellent	808	16.55	106	10.74	89	12.53
Health Statusa,b	Very Good	1,361	26.63	174	20.08	129	20.71
	Good	1,575	30.05	267	27.72	227	28.55
	Fair	949	17.57	267	29.14	203	24.61
	Poor	533	9.19	119	12.33	118	13.59

^aP<0.05 for the difference between non-Hispanic Whites (Whites) and non-Hispanic Blacks (Blacks);

^bP<0.05 for the difference between Whites and Hispanics.