Routine and Timely Health Care can Prevent Higher Costs for Patients, Reduce Mortality and Morbidity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2010
Contact: Kelley Elliott
(267.350.7699
or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Research Found Disparities among Minorities in Access to Routine Care

PHILADELPHIA –– Research findings presented by Public Health Management Corporation’s Community Health Data Base (CHDB) show that a sizeable number of adults in Southeastern Pennsylvania– about 1 in 10– do not have access to a regular health care provider and therefore may be missing out on important preventative and other health care services.

The 10% without a regular health care provider represent 152,430 people without a resource when they were sick or wanted advice about their health. Of the five counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Philadelphia had the highest percentage of adults with no regular source of care (13.7%), and Bucks County had the lowest percentage (7%).

PHMC’s 2008 Household Health Survey on routine care and access to health services in the five-county Southeastern Pennsylvania region also identifies racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in access to routine care and highlights barriers to care, such as cost, transportation and lack of insurance, that may be associated with these disparities.

  • A greater proportion of white adults had a regular source of care than was found among other racial and ethnic groups. In 2008, 20.5% of Latino adults, as compared to 8.4% of white adults, reported having no regular source of care.
  • Adults living below the federal poverty level were more likely to have no regular source of care than adults living above the federal poverty level (14.2% versus 9.9%).
  • 7.5% of adults reported canceling a doctor’s visit due to transportation problems, which represents over 218,200 adults in the region. Black (15.2%) and Latino (17.3%) adults were almost four times more likely to experience transportation barriers to care than white adults (4.2%).

CHDB’s Household Health Survey is one of the largest regional health surveys in the country. The Pew Charitable Trusts, The William Penn Foundation, United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania and over 350 local agencies from the health, government, nonprofit, and academic sectors help to support the CHDB. For more information, please visit http://www.phmc.org/chdb.

For more information on these findings or the Community Health Data Base, contact Francine Axler at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

References:

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Healthcare Disparities Report, 2006. Available at:  http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr06/nhdr06.htm