Studying geographic variation in coverage expansion under health reform to identify potential problems in access to care

The Foundation's program, State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE), was designed to support research and evaluation of state health reform initiatives and develop an evidence base for future state and federal reform initiatives.A key barrier to planning for, implementing, and monitoring the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the inability to produce reliable state and local estimates of coverage and access to care. This project will address this barrier through the employment of a novel reweighting method leveraging the frequency, detail and statistical power of national surveys to facilitate more precise small area estimates. Estimates of insurance coverage expansion populations will be linked to estimates of the health care workforce and medical care system capacity to highlight areas with potential access concerns. Deliverables will include a set of state and local weights with associated methodology documentation and instructions; a policy brief; two webinars; a 50-state report detailing estimates of geographic variation in the insurance coverage expansion population under the ACA; a report linking estimates of the expansion population to local measures of the health care workforce; and presentation at two annual research conferences. The results of this study will not only yield information relevant to insurance expansions and potential access issues under the ACA but also will provide researchers and policymakers with new tools to facilitate their own state-level analyses.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $166,484.00

Awarded on: 6/16/2012

Time frame: 7/1/2012 - 6/30/2013

Grant Number: 70161