More than 1.5 million children born to Mexican citizens living in the United States lack medical insurance, according to a study published Wednesday by Mexico's Interior Ministry.

Such children are three times more likely to have no coverage than a typical American child, the ministry added in a statement.

The full study, entitled "Migration and Health: the Children of Mexicans in the United States" appeared in conjunction with the Ninth Annual Binational Policy Forum on Migration and Health held in the U.S. city of Santa Fe.

Mexican children in the United States lack access to public programs and the resources to pay for health insurance privately, the study revealed. In addition, such children go to free emergency rooms less frequently than children who are U.S. citizens with white parents.

Some 6.3 million children, or around 1 in 15 of all U.S. children, have at least one Mexican-born parent. Although 86 percent of these 6.3 million children are U.S. citizens, their migratory and socio-economic condition entails that they face obstacles in getting health insurance. Only around 52 percent have access to public health centers.

Children under three born to Mexican migrants also suffer the highest rate of obesity compared with their peers and are more likely to suffer from anemia.

The document stressed the need to ensure that U.S.-born children of migrants have access to the benefits that they are lawfully entitled to, independent of their parents' migratory condition.

The study was jointly conducted by the Health Initiative of the Americas, the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Migration and Health Research Program.

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