Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #120048

Timothy R. Sahr, MPH, ThM, MDiv, MA, Franklin County, Ohio, District Board of Health, 280 East Broad Street, Columbus, OH 43215, 614.462.3608, sahr.6@osu.edu, William D. Hayes, PhD, Health Policy Institute of Ohio, 37 West Broad Street, Columbus, OH 43215, Gilbert Nestel, PhD, Ohio State University School of Public Health, 310 West 10th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, and Suellen Bennett, MS, The Columbus Health Department, 240 Parsons Avenue, Columbus, OH 43215.

The 2004 Ohio Family Health Survey interviewed 39,953 Ohio residents about their insurance status, medical system use, health behaviors, economic health, and demographics. In Franklin County, an over-sample of 3,254 households found that while the uninsured rate for Franklin County residents remained similar to a 1998 version of the survey, poverty increased at an unexpected rate. Health care access theories strongly link poverty to health services access barriers, yet the Franklin County OFHS data indicates that Ohio's expansion of its Medicaid-sponsored Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enabled child uninsured rates to fall dramatically, in spite of a stark increase in poverty – adult rates increased. This presentation examines how an increase in poverty has influenced health insurance trends in Franklin County between the 1998 and 2004 surveys and policy considerations for addressing an ever-stressed access to care status among those living at 200% and below the Federal Poverty Level. Particular attention will be given to the role local public health departments can play in addressing community-based access to care stressors.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will gain an overview of the relationship between poverty and being uninsured for adults and children and the consequences for general health care access and health care utilization.

Keywords: Access, Poverty

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.