problem searching for health insurance tables by race/ethnicity

A data user recently contacted PRB asking for help using American FactFinder to obtain county-level ACS estimates of children’s health insurance coverage by race and ethnicity. Within the advanced search menu, they began the search by selecting a single racial category from the “Race and Ethnic Groups” tab (Black or African American), and then tried to select “health insurance” under topics. When they did this, no ACS tables were listed. However, if they selected any other topic, all the topic tables that are disaggregated by race and ethnicity were listed. Also, we found that if “race/ethnicity of individual” was selected rather than a single racial/ethnic group then the health insurance tables would appear. Is there a reason that you cannot search for health insurance tables for a single race/ethnic group using the “Race and Ethnic Groups” tab? Is this a glitch in AFF?

Parents
  • What geography are you looking for? Certain tables are not available in the 5-year dataset. Like B27001 (Health Insurance coverage status by age) race tables (A through I.. e.g. B27001A, B27001B, etc). Could that be the issue? However, C27001 (A through I) are available in the 5-year, but not at the block group level (only tract or larger geography).

Reply
  • What geography are you looking for? Certain tables are not available in the 5-year dataset. Like B27001 (Health Insurance coverage status by age) race tables (A through I.. e.g. B27001A, B27001B, etc). Could that be the issue? However, C27001 (A through I) are available in the 5-year, but not at the block group level (only tract or larger geography).

Children
  • The tables of interest are available. The problem is how to find the tables using different methods of searching. For example, if you use the race and ethnic group search function and select "Black or African American" and then select "health insurance" under Topics->People, no health insurance tables using ACS data are listed -- see the image below for the search results. It seems like this is a glitch in AFF.