ACCESS TO healthcare

People have a right to access affordable, high-quality healthcare and protection from precursors to chronic illness. Below you can find data sources to help determine your healthcare access levels.

Cost is the largest barrier to accessible healthcare in the U.S., even with the help of health insurance. Public health insurance in the U.S., like Medicare and Medicaid, can help reduce the costs of medical care; however, many people don’t qualify and cannot afford private insurance. In many states, there is a cost-burden gap where people are above the threshold for Medicaid qualification, but still unable to afford other insurance.

Other barriers to healthcare include lack of transportation, language barriers, and distrust (often for good reason) of medical establishments. These barriers prevent people from getting the care that they need, which can lead to not knowing enough about serious illnesses or being forced to ignore them and becoming more sick. Free or low-cost clinics are often not advertised or known.

Annual checkups are a routine part of healthcare. People subject to the barriers of healthcare without access to annual checkups or preventative care may be forced to overly-rely on emergency services, even if the case is not an emergency. This creates strains on emergency services and leads to much higher medical bills.

Explore CDC PLACES health tool using your ZIP code search to assess chronic disease measures, including:

  • Health outcomes (asthma, high-blood pressure, cancer, depression, etc.)

  • Preventative measures (health insurance, annual check-ups, cancer screening, etc.)

  • Health risk behaviors (substance abuse, physical activity, sleep)

  • Disabilities (physical, cognitive, etc.)

  • Health status (physical, mental)

  • Social determinants of health (SDOHs) (age, housing cost burden, education, poverty, minorities, etc.)

CDC PLACES Dataset/Data Sources: download, visualize, and export data. Click Actions in the top right corner > click Query data to open the exploration canvas.

CDC Open Data Instructional Videos: Learn how to sort and filter data, familiarize yourself with the visualization canvas and create bar charts and location maps. To save charts or maps, you must create a general public access account. You will be prompted through this process after opening the visualization canvas and choosing Sign in with Tyler Data & Insights ID.

Health outcomes

CDC PLACES Instructions: Open Tool > Agree to terms > Click the search tool (magnifying glass icon) on the right side bar, top corner > Search by address, place, or current location > This will zoom into your census tract.

  • Use the top bar to choose between the listed health outcomes (e.g., asthma, cancer, diabetes).

  • Click on the highlighted census tract to see the percentage estimated prevalence of the health outcome based on the population.

  • Zoom out to compare the health outcome in the census tract with the surrounding areas.

Note: Switching from Health Outcomes to Prevention or Health Risk Behaviors on the top navigation bar will require address input again.

EPA EJScreen allows users to compare health disparities (low life expectancy, heart disease, asthma, cancer, disabilities, etc.) with other environmental justice indicators, such as socioeconomic status, area pollution, and critical service gaps (lack of health insurance, etc.).

EPA EJScreen Instructions: Open Tool > Click the search tool (magnifying glass icon) on the top right side bar > Search by address, place, or current location > This will zoom to your census tract > Use the left side bar to choose what indicators to display. Clicking one will display that indicator until you click it again to remove the display.

You can choose to display several indicators at once, for the same location. (e.g., low income, over age 64, cancer, lack of health insurance). The indicators will be displayed on the right hand side as percentiles, or prevalence compared to total population of that census block. Zooming out will display how your census tract compares to surrounding areas of the chosen indicators.

Users can generate a report for an area. These bar charts can downloaded by selecting Get Data Table in the lower right corner. See How to Use EJScreen.

See EJScreen Map Descriptions for indicator definitions. See Download EJScreen Data for full dataset raw downloads.

ACCESS TO Healthcare centers

The Health Resources & Services Administration allows users to Find Shortage Areas by Address to determine if an area is located in a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). This includes information on primary care, mental healthcare, and dental care, and if a location is a Medically Underserved Area or Population (MUA/MUP), identified by the Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW).

Health Professional Shortage Areas are determined by:

  • Population-to-provider ratio

  • Percent of population below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)

  • Travel time to the nearest source of care (NSC) outside the HPSA designation area

Medically Underserved Areas or Populations (MUA/MUP) identify areas or populations with a lack of access to primary care services. These groups often face economic, cultural, or language barriers. Designation as an MUA/MUP can help establish health maintenance organizations or community health centers.

Medicare, MEDICAID, & CHIldren’s health insurance

Definitions

MEDICARE: federal health insurance for people 65 or older, and some people under 65 with certain disabilities or conditions. Because it’s a federal program, Medicare has set standards for costs and coverage, meaning a person’s Medicare coverage will be the same no matter what state they live in. People with Medicare pay part of the costs through things like monthly premiums for medical and drug coverage, deductibles and coinsurance.

MEDICAID: joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for people with limited income and resources. The federal government has general rules that all state Medicaid programs must follow, but each state runs its own program. This means eligibility requirements and benefits vary from state to state. Medicaid offers benefits that Medicare doesn’t normally cover, like nursing home care and personal care services.

CHILDREN’S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM (CHIP): partnership between federal and state governments that provide low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance. In some states, CHIP covers pregnant women. CHIP benefits vary in each state.

The Children's Health Care Report Card is an interactive data hub that examines state child healthcare trends, available for download. In addition to current state policy options to expand Medicaid/CHIP programs, this includes:

  • Number & demographics of uninsured children

  • Participation in Medicaid & CHIP

  • Quality of care

  • Primary care & preventative access

Medicaid State Data

Additional Resources

Explore Health Rankings by County: download state data sets to examine health measures by location or topic and compare counties by rank