Medicaid Primary Care Utilization and Area-Level Social Vulnerability

How is the concentration of social vulnerability in an area associated with primary care utilization by Medicaid beneficiaries?This cross-sectional study including data for 34 890 932 Medicaid beneficiaries (age <65 years) found that those residing in the most socially vulnerable areas were significantly less likely to have a primary care visit; however, the probability of having a primary care visit at a federally qualified health center for these beneficiaries increased.These findings suggest that health workforce initiatives and outreach efforts in underserviced areas with high concentrations of social vulnerability may be more effective when they use area-level multidimensional indexes for targeted strategies to improve access to primary care.

Corresponding Author: Jordan Herring, PhD, School of Medicine, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305 (herringj@stanford.edu).

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