Delayed and forgone health care for nonelderly adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: findings from the September 11–28 Coronavirus Tracking Survey
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Gonzalez, Dulce, author Karpman, Michael, author Kenney, Genevieve M., author Zuckerman, Stephen, author
- Contributor(s):
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, issuing body. Urban Institute, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : Urban Institute, February 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Adult COVID-19 Emergency Medical Services -- statistics & numerical data Health Facility Closure -- economics Health Services Accessibility -- statistics & numerical data Pandemics -- statistics & numerical data United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health care in an unprecedented way, leading some patients to postpone or forgo care (Czeisler et al. 2020). Visits to primary care physicians, emergency rooms, and other health care providers fell as providers scaled back their operations and patients curbed their health care use because of the pandemic (Garcia et al. 2020; Hartnett et al. 2020; Jiang et al. 2020; Mast and Munoz del Rio 2020; Mehrotra et al. 2020; Santoli et al. 2020). Most health care providers have new safety protocols in place and have seen visits rebound since the start of the pandemic (Mehrotra et al. 2020). However, significant numbers of patients continue avoiding care because they fear exposure to the novel coronavirus (Morning Consult and American College of Emergency Physicians 2020), and reduced patient volumes are leading some physicians to close their practices for financial reasons. Though some missed care may have been of low value or unnecessary, physicians report concern over unmet needs for care, particularly for people with chronic health conditions, whose health can deteriorate rapidly without careful monitoring and treatment. Mortality data suggest the pandemic has caused a surge in excess deaths from conditions such as diabetes, dementia, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke, and a record number of drug overdose deaths occurred in the 12 months ending in May 2020 (Woolf et al. 2020). These events underscore the importance of ensuring people with chronic physical and behavioral health conditions continue to access the care they need during the public health crisis and beyond. Using data from the most recent wave of the Coronavirus Tracking Survey, a nationally representative survey of nonelderly adults conducted September 11 through 28, 2020, we examine delayed or forgone health care during the pandemic among adults ages 18 to 64. We examine experiences with nine types of health care services and assess patterns by race/ethnicity, income, and the presence of physical and mental health conditions, including conditions associated with elevated risk for severe illness from COVID-19. 7 Our analysis focuses on reported instances of delayed or forgone care resulting from patients’ and providers’ efforts to prevent transmission of the virus: (1) care respondents did not receive because they were worried about exposure to the coronavirus and (2) care they did not receive because a health care provider limited services because of the coronavirus outbreak.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (16 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918316883306676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918316883306676