Percentage of Adults Who Were Unable to Get Needed Medical Care Due to Cost by County, New Mexico, 2016-2020
Indicator Report Data View Options
Why Is This Important?
Lack of health insurance coverage has been associated with increased risk of chronic disease and mortality. People who forgo needed health care services may be more likely to succumb to preventable illnesses and to suffer complications from those illnesses, and possibly be more likely to die prematurely.
Percentage of Adults Who Were Unable to Get Needed Medical Care Due to Cost by County, New Mexico, 2016-2020
Definition
The percentage of New Mexicans who are unable to get needed care because of cost at the time of the survey. Question text: Was there a time in the past 12 months when you needed to see a doctor but could not because of cost?
Data Notes
The county-level BRFSS data used for this indicator report were weighted to be representative of the New Mexico Health Region populations. Had the data been weighted to be representative of each county population, the results would likely have been different.Data Sources
- Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, together with New Mexico Department of Health, Injury and Behavioral Epidemiology Bureau.
(https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/ibeb/brfss/) - U.S. data source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Prevalence and Trends Data.
(https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/brfssprevalence)
How the Measure is Calculated
| Numerator: | Number of persons in the survey sample who were in the given category (e.g., unable to get needed care because of cost or able to get care because of cost) at the time of the survey. |
| Denominator: | Total number of persons in the survey sample who responded to the question. |
Data Issues
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is an ongoing survey of adults about health-related behaviors, health conditions, and preventive services. Data are collected in all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories. The survey is conducted using scientific telephone survey methods for landline and cellular phones (with cellular since 2011). The landline phone portion of the survey excludes adults living in group quarters such as college dormitories, nursing homes, military barracks, and prisons. The cellular phone portion of the survey includes adult students living in college dormitories but excludes other group quarters. Beginning with 2011, the BRFSS updated its surveillance methods by adding in calls to cell phones and changing its weighting methods. These changes improve BRFSS' ability to take into account the increasing proportion of U.S. adults using only cellular telephones. Because of these changes, the data from years prior to 2011 are not directly comparable to data from 2011 and later. Please see the [[a href="/nmibis-view/docs/Query/BRFSS/BRFSS_fact_sheet_Aug2012.pdf BRFSS Method Change Factsheet]]. Responses have been weighted to reflect the New Mexico adult population by age, sex, ethnicity, geographic region, marital status, education level, home ownership and type of phone. The "missing" and "don't know" responses are not included when calculating a percentage.Health Topic Pages Related to: Health Care Access - Unable to Get Care Because of Cost
Community Health Resources and Links
- Healthy People 2030 Website
- The Guide to Community Preventive Services
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
- County Health Rankings
- Kaiser Family Foundation's StateHealthFacts
Medical literature can be queried at the PubMed website.