ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the factors that impact the health status and service utilization of Puerto Rican elders and thereby affect their ability to maintain daily functioning activities. Elderly Puerto Rican immigrants to the United States are a unique case because Puerto Rico was annexed to the United States in 1898 and the natives were granted US citizenship in 1917. The Puerto Rican elderly were found to be extremely disadvantaged when compared to the Mexicans and Cubans. The Puerto Rican elderly had significantly greater needs than the Cuban Americans on all ten of the measures and significantly more than the Mexican Americans on three: transportation, routine telephone calls to check on health, and food stamps. Both Mexicans and Puerto Ricans who rated their health as poor tended to score higher on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale, while those who did the interview in Spanish scored even higher on depression.
