Research on the effects of social inequality on racial and ethnic minority groups and the role of the safety net - Health Tracking Joint Solicitation

The Foundation's Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization program was designed to support research, demonstration, and evaluation projects examining major changes in health care financing.This grant supports research to examine whether community-level characteristics, such as unequal income distribution and segregation in housing, affect the decision to purchase private health insurance. The objectives are to: (1) assess what individual, community, and state-level factors affect the decision to remain uninsured or to purchase individual health insurance and whether those factors result in lower rates of individual insurance purchased by minorities; and (2) describe access problems experienced by the uninsured. Access problems will refer specifically to inequality in access to services available to uninsured or vulnerable populations in the community (i.e., the community's "safety net"), as well as whether the availability of safety net services influences low-income individuals to delay purchasing individual insurance, or to not purchase at all. They will estimate the probability of individuals purchasing individual insurance, delaying or not obtaining care, utilizing outpatient services, and having a regular source of care. The researchers will use the Community Tracking Study Household Survey, along with data from HCFA, the American Hospital Association, Census Bureau data, the Area Resource File, the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism data, and data on the percent of medically underserved persons served by federal and state funds from a study by Sara Rosenbaum.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $100,768.00

Awarded on: 2/19/1999

Time frame: 3/1/1999 - 2/28/2001

Grant Number: 36332