By Kate Leo
According to the CDC, more than 46 million Americans (about 15% of the US) live in rural areas. Living rurally means that the population is not dense around your area of living. People usually conjure images of farmland or small mountain towns when they think of rural areas. While it can be a peaceful and more simple way of living, there are large disparities when it comes to health outcomes between urban living and rural living. These negative outcomes include people having an increased chance of dying from heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke. Children also have negative health outcomes such as more mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders.
There are many reasons for these negative health outcomes in rural areas. One of the main reasons is the lack of access to care. This includes both the physical distance between someone’s home and the nearest health clinic and the financial means to have access to proper care. 23% of Americans who live in rural areas express concern with having available care nearby. On average, rural Americans live 10.5 miles from the nearest hospital, which is more than double the average distance for those in suburban areas. An intervention that has been increasing in popularity to overcome this physical distance is utilizing telehealth. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has become a more popular method of accessing care. According to a study that was conducted over 9 years, telehealth reduced travel distances by 5 million miles across the entire study population which caused $3 million in travel cost savings. With telehealth, patients can access primary care in a safe and efficient manner. This would help screen patients for clinical issues like high blood pressure and unhealthy behaviors like smoking.
A second issue is the number of people who are uninsured in rural areas and can’t afford to access care. According to Census information from 2017, uninsurance rates were higher in rural areas than urban areas (12.3% vs. 10.1%). A way to mitigate these uninsurance rates is to increase Medicaid expansion. Small towns and rural areas of states that have already expanded Medicaid have the sharpest decline in those who are uninsured. Medicaid expansion is important because those in rural areas typically have a lower income, lower rates of workforce participation, and higher rates of disability.
Analyzing rural health is important because there are large disparities in these populations with health outcomes. Two large reasons for these worsened outcomes is lack of physical access and financial access to primary care. There are interventions that should be implemented in order to reduce these obstacles; everyone, no matter their location and financial status, deserves to have equal opportunity for good health.
Sources:
1. About Rural Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/ruralhealth/about.html. Published August 2, 2017. Accessed February 5, 2021.
2. Lam O, Broderick B, Toor S. How far Americans live from the closest hospital differs by community type. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/12/how-far-americans-live-from-the-closest-hospital-differs-by-community-type/. Published July 27, 2020. Accessed February 5, 2021.
3. Health S. Strategies for Rural Patient Healthcare Access Challenges. PatientEngagementHIT. https://patientengagementhit.com/features/strategies-for-rural-patient-healthcare-access-challenges. Published December 18, 2019. Accessed February 5, 2021.
4. Day JC. Health Insurance in Rural America. The United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/health-insurance-rural-america.html. Published September 24, 2019. Accessed February 5, 2021.
5. Hoadley J, Alker J, Holmes M, Park E, Schneider A. Health Insurance Coverage in Small Towns and Rural America: The Role of Medicaid Expansion. Center For Children and Families. https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2018/09/25/health-insurance-coverage-in-small-towns-and-rural-america-the-role-of-medicaid-expansion/. Published September 25, 2018. Accessed February 5, 2021.
コメント