By analyzing healthcare usage by location demographics, physicians and health systems can gain insight into a patient’s unique needs. For example, African-American patients may be less responsive to ACE inhibitors for treating hypertension, while they might respond well to calcium channel blockers or thiazide diuretics. These types of data help ensure that a patient receives the best treatment options for their specific condition and has access to the resources they need to get better.
This collection of charts focuses on changes in the geographic presence of medical, pharmacy, and drugstore facilities across neighborhoods over time. Changes in the geographical presence of health care facilities can impact health and wellbeing by influencing how and where people access services, whether or not they are covered by insurance.
Neighborhood-level racial/ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics were associated with change in neighborhood-level availability of medical, pharmacy, and drugstore facilities over time. Census tracts that never gained or lost health care facilities were more likely to have a changing racial/ethnic composition than CTs that consistently had health care facilities; and they were also more likely to have a higher percentage of residents living below poverty level and a lower percentage of residents with a high school diploma or less.
Health spending is highly concentrated, even within populations with similar average health costs. The top 10% of spenders account for 55% of all health spending. healthcare usage by location demographic