QuickStats: Percentage of Persons of All Ages Who Delayed or Did Not Receive Medical Care During the Preceding Year Because of Cost, by U.S. Census Region of Residence* — National Health Interview Survey, 2015

Article Metrics
Altmetric:
Related Materials

* Percentages shown with 95% confidence intervals. Based on responses to the following questions: “During the past 12 months, has [person] delayed seeking medical care because of worry about the cost?” and “During the past 12 months, was there a time when [person] needed medical care but did not get it because [person] could not afford it?” Both questions excluded dental care. Respondents were asked questions regarding themselves and all other family members of all ages living in the same household. It was possible for a person to have both delayed seeking medical care because of worry about the cost and not received medical care because they could not afford it.

Estimates were based on household interviews of a sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized U.S. population and were derived from the National Health Interview Survey Family Core component. Unknowns were excluded from the denominators when calculating percentages.

In 2015, approximately 6% of persons of all ages (20.1 million) in the United States delayed medical care during the preceding year because of worry about the cost, and 4.5% (14.2 million) did not receive needed medical care because they could not afford it. Persons living in the Northeast were significantly less likely than persons living in the Midwest, South, or West to delay or not receive needed medical care. Persons living in the South were significantly more likely to not receive needed medical care than those in the Northeast, Midwest, or West.
Source: National Health Interview Survey, 2015. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm.

Reported by: Jacqueline B. Lucas, MPH, Jacqueline.Lucas@cdc.hhs.gov, 301-458-4355.


Suggested citation for this article: QuickStats: Percentage of Persons of All Ages Who Delayed or Did Not Receive Medical Care During the Preceding Year Because of Cost, by U.S. Census Region of Residence — National Health Interview Survey, 2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2017;66:121. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6604a9External.

MMWR and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of the date of publication.

All HTML versions of MMWR articles are generated from final proofs through an automated process. This conversion might result in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users are referred to the electronic PDF version (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr) and/or the original MMWR paper copy for printable versions of official text, figures, and tables.

Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.

View Page In:Cdc-pdf
Page last reviewed: August 1, 2017