Monterey Institute of International Studies

Intro to Data Analysis

Dr. Phil Murphy

Data Analysis B

December 13, 2013

How individual views on Social Issues , Economic Issues, Personal Safety, Crime Rate and Economic Impact affect one’s view on acceptance of state provided health

care for migrant workers

Xiao’ou Zhu & Behzad Raufi

Introduction

An estimated three million workers earn their living through migrant and seasonal farm labor, traveling the nation to support an agricultural industry which yielded $28 billion in fruit and vegetable business in 2001 alone.1 Forty-five years ago, farm labor was the subject of Harvest of Shame,2 a classic documentary which chronicled the devastating conditions under which migrant laborers worked. Much has changed over the past four and a half decades where workplace safety and health care access are concerned; at the same time, migrant and seasonal farm workers continue to confront unique health and healthcare challenges arising from the hazardous nature of their work, their extreme poverty and mobility, and living and working arrangements which serve to make access to health insurance and health care especially difficult. For the purpose of this research we define Migrant workers as follows. A “migrant agricultural worker” is an individual who is employed in agricultural employment of a seasonal or other temporary nature, and…is required to be absent overnight from his permanent place of residence. (Department of Labor)

Literature Review

One of the commonly cited reasons for opposition of universal healthcare in the U.S. is "Free" health care isn't quite free since we must pay for it with taxes; it is perceived that expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, or it would lead to a government spending increase. However, studies from other parts of the world have shown that providing universal health care is not associated to an increase in the cost of providing health care. Jui-Fen Rachel Lu and William C. Hsiao in their study examine the performance of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI). Taiwan implemented a universal health insurance program in 1995, which covers comprehensive services for all citizens. This provides insight into two key questions related to provision and implementation of universal health care programs: First, does implementation of a national health insurance program cause Taiwanese health spending to escalate to an unaffordable level? And second what benefits does adoption of such programs have? Their study concludes implementation of the national health care program allowed Taiwan to manage health spending inflation. A secondary benefit of the program resulted from offsetting the costs of covering the previously uninsured. The program, quite popular amongst the citizens with a 70% acceptance rate, has brought more equal access to health care, greater financial risk protection, and equity in health care financing.

In his article “Low-Skilled Immigrant Workers Are Vital Contributors to the Economy,” David Bier discusses the reluctance of the Republican Party in supporting a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Despite the integral part migrant workers play in ensuring the constant churning of the U.S. agricultural industry, their role is viewed as insignificant because it does not generate income taxes. Anti-immigration reform groups and think tank firms believe that the U.S. would benefit from fewer people; however, these conservative groups pay little attention to the important role migrant workers play in allowing U.S. citizens to specialize in highly skilled jobs by doing the jobs that are highly labor intensive and require low-skills. The value of migrant workers in the American economy is not limited to the work they perform and the low wages they generate, but rather on the wealth of economic possibilities they create for American citizen by freeing them from the burden of performing low skilled jobs. The conservative groups and the Republican party’s opposition to providing rights of any sort to immigrant workers or acknowledging the vital role they play in the U.S. economy is irrational and unjustified.

There are some three million migrant and seasonal farm workers in the US; yet due to the nature of their work, poverty, and mobility, they face unique health care challenges. Using literature and data from Department of Labor and Health and Human Services, this policy brief reviews migrant workers’ health challenges and healthcare coverage. The study finds that in the year 2000, 85% of the adult and 90% of children migrant workers were uninsured; additionally, only about 20% reported using any type of healthcare services; cost and language barriers are the significant reasons behind lack of utilization of healthcare services. Migration from state to state, eligibility requirements and lack of language skills prove as barriers to obtaining Medicaid coverage. The policy brief suggests facilitating eligibility reciprocity across states, implementing a “traveling Medicaid card” system, and creating a new federal coverage program as means to improve access to health care for migrant workers.

Research Question o This study will investigate how individual views on Social Issues (SI), Economic

Issues (EI), Personal Safety (PS) Crime Rate (Crime) and Economic Impact (EImpact) affect one’s view on acceptance of state provided healthcare for migrant workers

o The core hypothesis is that Social Issues (SI), Economic Issues (EI), Personal Safety (PS) Crime Rate (Crime) and Economic Impact (EImpact) are relevant in explaining acceptance of healthcare for migrant workers in Monterey. The questions include:

§ Do individuals views on Social issues in Monterey county affect their acceptance of health care for migrant workers?

§ Does individuals views on Economic Issues affect acceptance for health care for migrant workers?

§ Does Personal Safety has any effect on acceptance of health care for migrant workers?

§ Does Crime Rate has any effect on peoples views of accepting acceptance for health care for migrant workers?

§ Does the economic impact Migrant workers have on the society affects individuals acceptance of health care for migrant workers?

3. Definition of the variables

• For the purpose of research, the ‘acceptance’ is constituted of five variables. Following are questions that were asked:

o How do you classify your views on social issues? o How do you classify your views on economic issues? o Please rate how safe you feel in your community. o In your opinion, to what extent does the undocumented migrant worker

population in your area influence crime rates? o What type of economic impact do you feel migrant workers have upon the

economy?

These variables were collected during the interviews and are measured on Likert scale of one to ten.

DEFINITION OF THE VARIABLES

Variable Name Questions Descriptive Stats Mean, Standard Deviation, Missing Observations

Health Care How do you feel about California providing health care to undocumented migrant farm workers?

6.37;3.28/ 1 Missing

Social Issues (SI)

How do you classify your views on social issues?

4.28;2.72/ 8 Missing

Economic Issues (EI)

How do you classify your views on economic issues?

5.10; 2.60/ 9 Missing

Personal Safety (PS)

Please rate how safe you feel in your community.

5.21; 2.04/ 22 Missing

Crime Rate (Crime)

In your opinion, to what extent does the undocumented migrant worker population in your area influence crime rates?

4.04; 2.51/ 14 Missing

Economic Impact (EImpact)

What type of economic impact do you feel migrant workers have upon the economy?

5.10;2.61/ 6 Missing

• The categories by which we group the samples are

o Social Issues (SI) o Economic Issues (EI), o Personal Safety (PS) o Crime Rate (Crime) and o Economic Impact (EImpact)

Methodology

The goal of this study is to examine whether one’s view Social Issues (SI), Economic Issues (EI), Personal Safety (PS),Crime Rate (Crime) and Economic Impact (EImpact) can affect their view on acceptance of state provided healthcare for Migrant Workers.. To do so, we run Multiple Regression investigate to what extent these factors affect people’s views. Acceptance is represented as the variable Health Care, namely How do you feel about California providing health care to undocumented migrant farm workers. The higher the score is, more accepting the population is.. 5. Output and Findings A. Specify the model Health Care=a + β1*SI+β2*EI+β3*PS+β4*Crime+β5*EImpact B. Coefficients Ho: βi=0 A given variable tells us nothing about the outcome H1: β1≠0 SI tells us nothing about the acceptance H2: β2≠0 EI tells us nothing about the acceptance H3: β3≠0 PS tells us nothing about the acceptance H4: β4≠0 Crime tells us nothing about the acceptance H5: β5≠0 EImpact tells us nothing about the acceptance C. F-test Ho: β1=β2=β3=β4=β5=0 The model is not informative at predicting the acceptance of health care for migrant workers among Monterey residents. Ha: βi≠0 The model is informative at predicting the acceptance of health care for migrant workers among Monterey residents.

D. Results Multiple regression were run to test whether the five variables were significant predictors of the acceptance of migrant workers among Monterey residents (health care). Each model was significant (f=test p-value<0.001), and in the final iteration, two out of five of the variables were significant predictors of the acceptance of migrant workers among Monterey residents (health care). Crime, Safety and SI were not significant at the 0.05 level.

  Estimate   SE   p-­‐value  (Intercept)   4.04   0.78   <0.001  

EI   -­‐0.37   0.07   <0.001  EImpact   0.60   0.08   <0.001  

Multiple  R-­‐squared:    0.33  

F-­‐statistic:  59.41,  p-­‐value:  <  0.001 The regression model becomes Healthcare=4.04 -0.37*EI + 0.6*EImpact

Interpretation

Interpreting Model 2, what we find is that, For each one point increase in economic conservativeness, we expect that their acceptance would decrease by 0.37, holding EImpact constant. Subsequently, For each one point increase in view on the impact of migrants on economy, we expect that their acceptance would increase by 0.6, holding EI constant. The R-squared value indicates that our model accounts for 33.11% of the variation in Healthcare. This means that the two variables in the model tell us about 33.11% of what affect people’s acceptance for migrants, or, in other words, people’s willingness to allow California provide health care for migrant workers.

Discussion & Policy Relevance

There is a brief explanation on the relation between the predictors and the outcome. · How do you classify your views on economic issues (EI)? This model indicates that the more conservative attitude people have on economic issues will lead to less acceptance of migrant workers, which is expressed by their willingness to have California provide health care for undocumented migrant workers. Yet the relation between the predictor and the outcome is not very strong with -0.37. · What type of economic impact do you feel migrant workers have upon the economy (Eimpact)? This model illustrate that more positively people feel about migrant worker’s impact on the economy, more acceptance they have on migrant workers. The Eimpact is a moderately strong predictor of people’s willingness to have California provide health care for undocumented migrant workers. These two variables explain a fair amount of the outcome (R-squared=0.3899). Thus we recommend the following: · A public campaign is need to explain to people, especial those who are economically conservative, about the role undocumented migrant workers play in Monterey. Yet large amount of financial input is not necessary since the EI is not the strongest determinant for people’s acceptance of migrant workers.

Appendix 1 Satisfying Assumption 1. Independent Observation: Yes, Random Sample 2. Continuous Variables, Yes, Likert Scale Measurement 3. Linear relationship between dependent variables and independent variables

Through correlation matrix, Checking to see that the Dependent variable has a linear relationship with each of the independent variables:

Pearson correlations: Crime EI Eimpact Healtcare Safety SI Crime 1.0000 0.1185 -0.2401 -0.2228 -0.2351 0.1721 EI 0.1185 1.0000 -0.3106 -0.4228 -0.1581 0.5597 Eimpact -0.2401 -0.3106 1.0000 0.5038 0.2231 -0.3487 Healtcare -0.2228 -0.4228 0.5038 1.0000 0.2094 -0.3247 Safety -0.2351 -0.1581 0.2231 0.2094 1.0000 -0.0195 SI 0.1721 0.5597 -0.3487 -0.3247 -0.0195 1.0000

Correlation for vital Variables Pearson Correlations Health Care

EI -0.4228

EImpact 0.5038

P-Values Health Care

EI 0

EImpact 0 The correlation matrix indicates that the two variables, namely EI and EImpact have a significant correlations with the dependent variable, namely health care, and the scatter plot matrix (below) indicates that the relationship is linear.

4. Independent Variables are not closely related

Through correlation matrix, Checking to see whether there’s a linear relationship among each Independent Variables:

Crime EI Eimpact Safety SI Crime 1.0000000 0.1218411 -0.2607628 -0.24697272 0.17901678 EI 0.1218411 1.0000000 -0.3227940 -0.14384067 0.55892259 Eimpact -0.2607628 -0.3227940 1.0000000 0.22395006 -0.37866553 Safety -0.2469727 -0.1438407 0.2239501 1.00000000 -0.03698108 SI 0.1790168 0.5589226 -0.3786655 -0.03698108 1.00000000

Pairwise two-sided p-values: Crime EI Eimpact Safety SI Crime 0.0698 0.0002 0.0004 0.0082 EI 0.0698 <.0001 0.0171 <.0001 Eimpact 0.0002 <.0001 0.0007 <.0001 Safety 0.0004 0.0171 0.0007 0.0013 0.7686 SI 0.0082 <.0001 <.0001 0.7686 Correlation between key variables Pearson Correlation EI Eimpact

EI 1.00 -0.31 P-Value EI Eimpact

EI

0

The correlation between different IV is less than 0.6 level, so we conclude by saying that independent variables are not closely related. Our R-squared value is 0.3106, which is significantly less than 0.60.

5. Homoscedasticity

The scatter plots indicate that there appear to be three outliers that we may consider removing to improve model fit. Otherwise, the model appears robust.

Appendix 2. Script Files from R Commander rcorr.adjust(Healthcare[,c("Crime","EI","Eimpact","Healtcare","Safety",      "SI")],  type="pearson",  use="pairwise.complete")    scatterplotMatrix(~Crime+EI+Eimpact+Healtcare+Safety+SI,  reg.line=lm,        smooth=TRUE,  spread=FALSE,  span=0.5,  id.n=0,  diagonal  =  'density',        data=Healthcare)    oldpar  <-­‐  par(oma=c(0,0,3,0),  mfrow=c(2,2))  plot(RegModel.1)  par(oldpar)    RegModel.1  <-­‐  lm(Healtcare~Crime+EI+Eimpact+Safety+SI,  data=Healthcare)  summary(RegModel.1)    RegModel.2  <-­‐  lm(Healtcare~EI+Eimpact,  data=Healthcare)  summary(RegModel.2)      

Bibliography Bier, D. 2012. “Low-Skilled Immigrant Workers Are Vital Contributors to the Economy.” Forbes. September 12, 2012. Accessed from: <http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/09/12/low-skilled-immigrant-workers-are-vital-contributors-to-the-economy/> Lu, J.R. Hsiao, W.C. (2003). “Insurance Make Health Care Unaffordable? Lessons From Taiwan.” Health Affairs. Vol 22 No. 3; 77-88 Rosenbaum, Sara, and Peter Shina. Migrant and seasonal farmworkers: health insurance coverage and access to care. Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005