The Health of Hispanic Children from Birth to Emerging Adulthood

Abstract

This article summarizes frameworks for understanding Hispanic children’s health, sources of national data available to evaluate their health, and variations in health among Hispanic children. Following ecological and life-course perspectives, we organize our review of the literature on Hispanic children’s health and development according to three key stages of child development (zero to three, early to middle childhood, and adolescence to emerging adulthood) with attention to how each stage influences the next. Within each stage, we consider how social position (i.e., skin color, social class, gender, and nativity), social contexts (i.e., family, school, and neighborhood), and political and legal contexts influence Hispanic children’s health and development. We argue that to improve the health and development of Hispanic children, federal, state, and local policies must address social and economic injustices that lead to declines in health across immigrant generations and persistent racial/ethnic health disparities.