Rural residence, health inequities, and disparities

The purpose of this study is to explore relationships among rural residence, access to health care, health insurance, self-rated level of health, and other socioeconomic and demographic factors. Rural residents are more likely than non-rural residents to lack access to health care; this includes physical access, limited by isolation, distance, lack of transportation, and service unavailability related to economies of scale, as well as financial access, due to higher rates of poverty, under-employment, low educational attainment, and lack of health insurance.

In an effort to understand these issues further, data from the ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 1201 U.S. adults were analyzed. While only preliminary analysis has been completed, some interesting findings were revealed. Although there was not a large difference between percentages of rural residents (11.3) and non-rural residents (9.8) lacking health insurance, rural residents who lacked insurance had been uninsured for significantly longer than the non-rural. Rural residents who had insurance were more likely to be insured by Medicare or Medicaid (22% and 5%), and less likely to be privately insured (73%), than non-rural residents (19%, 3%, and 78%, respectively). In addition, those respondents who did not have health insurance had significantly lower self-rated levels of health.

Findings from in-depth analyses of the data, policy options, effective political strategies, and impact of universal health care on rural residents, as well as private versus public solutions to ameliorate these problems will be discussed.