New study highlights health disparities in Maine's rural counties
Photo / Mainebiz Staff
The focus of a conference hosted by Maine Health Access Foundation on Thursday was how health providers are addressing challenges faced by Maine's rural residents. During the conference, the organization provided attendees with this new report focused on the unique challenges rural health care providers face.
A new statewide profile of rural health revealing significant disparities between Maine’s urban and rural counties set the stage for a daylong series of panel discussions in Bangor on Thursday focusing on how rural health providers are finding innovative ways to overcome those challenges.
The conference, featuring speakers from across Maine, was hosted by Maine Health Access Foundation, which provided attendees its newly released analysis finding that those with family incomes less than $25,000 a year, young adults, racial and ethnic minorities and people with less education are more likely to:
· Delay seeking health care even when sick
· Be unable to afford prescription medication
· Lack access to preventative health checkups and screenings or have a regular health care provider.
Compiled by the Muskie School of Public Service’s Maine Rural Health Research Center, the profile is based on data from 2012 to 2014 and includes an 18-page statewide summary along with individual reports for each of Maine’s 16 counties.
“If you’re young, have a low-income, lack higher education or are a racial or ethnic minority, health care may be a luxury that you struggle to afford,” said Barbara Leonard, president and CEO of the Maine Health Access Foundation, in a statement accompanying the report. “Many are just one health care crisis away from financial hardship. To make improvements that help people to live better, healthy and happier lives, we have to change the way we approach health care delivery, especially for those facing the greatest barriers to care.”
The report identifies the convergence of several economic and demographic factors as contributors to the overall finding that rural Mainers are less healthy than their urban counterparts: A higher concentration of older residents, lower incomes and education, unhealthy habits, geographic and financial barriers to accessing health care services, including reduced access to employer-sponsored health insurance. Among the findings:
· More than one in five residents of Piscataquis, Washington and Aroostook counties are living with a disability, the highest percentages in the state
· Maine’s rural residents are more likely to report multiple chronic conditions
· The prevalence of diabetes is higher in rural Maine
· Maine’s rural residents are less likely to report they are receiving treatment for mental health, despite reporting rates of depression comparable to their urban counterparts
· Residents of Piscataquis, Aroostook and Androscoggin counties rank among the most likely to report they had a check-up in the past year, while residents of Knox, Franklin and Waldo counties are the least likely
· Washington, Somerset and Penobscot counties rank highest for their residents not having a personal primary care provider
· Residents of Hancock, Piscataquis and Washington counties are the least likely to have private or public insurance in Maine. Those counties also have the highest percentage of uninsured children.
In an afternoon keynote address at Thursday’s conference, Alan Morgan, CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Rural Health Association, openly acknowledged that Tuesday’s election of Donald Trump as the country’s next president creates huge uncertainty in health care both in Maine and nationally.
“I want to address the elephant in the room right off the bat,” he said. “It’s the Affordable Care Act. The new president has said on Day 1 he’s going to repeal that. We’ve spent the last 48 hours trying to get a sense of what exactly he means by ‘repealing the ACA.’”
Morgan said specific answers to that question aren’t known right now, largely because the ACA’s enabling legislation cuts across so many aspects of the national health care system and includes provisions that were inserted into the law by Republicans that might well continue under the new Republican president and Congress.
Morgan said national studies support the findings of the Maine rural health report, citing as one example the annual county rankings published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that shows a “rural divide” in the country with respect to health care, with rural Americans having shorter life expectancies, higher incidence of opioid addictions and higher suicide rates.
He also cited numerous examples of nationwide initiatives under way to counter those trends, and expressed his hope that the elected president would not turn his back on the large constituency of rural residents who voted for him.
“Rural health care is not a partisan issue,” he said.
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