Assessing county health department service utilization across the South Central Health District of Georgia
Location
Virtual
Faculty Mentors
Dr. Jessica Schwind
Course Name
Social Epidemiology and Health Equity
Session Type
Graduate Poster Presentation
Presentation Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Start Date
14-4-2020 2:30 PM
Description
Many rural hospitals across the United States closed in the last decade due to changes in the nation’s healthcare infrastructure. As such, rural communities continued to experience major health issues less common among their urban counterparts, such as decreased healthcare access and life expectancy declines. The South Central Health District of Georgia was also impacted as county health departments reported underutilization of services and resources. The objective of this service-learning project was to describe the health department utilization across ten counties and compare demographics to better understand subpopulation trends. To achieve this objective, data was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau and the district to explore possible reasons behind reduced health department utilization. Variables included patient visits by program and sociodemographic characteristics such as sex, age, race/ethnicity, and insurance status. Our project findings suggest strategies should be implemented to increase health department utilization by targeting specific subgroups of the population.
Assessing county health department service utilization across the South Central Health District of Georgia
Virtual
Many rural hospitals across the United States closed in the last decade due to changes in the nation’s healthcare infrastructure. As such, rural communities continued to experience major health issues less common among their urban counterparts, such as decreased healthcare access and life expectancy declines. The South Central Health District of Georgia was also impacted as county health departments reported underutilization of services and resources. The objective of this service-learning project was to describe the health department utilization across ten counties and compare demographics to better understand subpopulation trends. To achieve this objective, data was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau and the district to explore possible reasons behind reduced health department utilization. Variables included patient visits by program and sociodemographic characteristics such as sex, age, race/ethnicity, and insurance status. Our project findings suggest strategies should be implemented to increase health department utilization by targeting specific subgroups of the population.
