The Health Status of Puerto Ricans in Florida

During the past two decades, Puerto Ricans have been moving to central Florida in large numbers in search of better opportunities. While there is some evidence that Puerto Ricans in central Florida enjoy higher levels of education than Puerto Ricans living in traditional settlement hubs, it remains unclear if these population shifts have also translated into health benefits. The first goal of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the literature on the health of Puerto Ricans in the United States. The literature shows that Puerto Ricans continue to experience worse health outcomes than other groups. The second goal is to establish a recent profile of Puerto Rican health in the U.S. and Florida. By using recently released data from the 2007 American Community Survey, we compared disability rates of Puerto Ricans across 72 counties with large Puerto Rican populations. Our results indicate that Puerto Ricans in Florida have a health advantage over many Puerto Ricans living elsewhere in the U.S. We conclude by discussing some of the social scientific implications of this study and by making some recommendations for future research in this highly understudied area of Puerto Rican disability.