Effects of Uninsurance during the Preceding 10 Years on Health Status Among Rural Working Age Adults

Funder:	Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP)
Research center:	South Carolina Rural Health Research Center Phone: 803.251.6317
Lead researcher:	Janice C. Probst, PhD , 803.251.6317, jprobst@gwm.sc.edu
Project completed:	August 2005
Topic:	Health insurance and the uninsured

This project utilizes data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which has over 20 years worth of data on individuals who were between the ages of 14-22 in 1979, in order to determine the effects of long-term, continuous uninsurance on health status. This study will compare people in rural and urban areas to determine if differences in health insurance and its effect on health status occur between these two populations.

The following hypotheses will be tested:

• Workers with longer periods of uninsurance, in multivariate analyses controlling for income, poverty and status/behavior at the beginning of the time period, will be more likely to be overweight, to smoke, to report experiencing hypertension or diabetes, or to describe their health as "fair" to "poor."
• Effects of uninsurance will be greater in rural than in urban respondents, and greater for minority rural populations than for white rural populations.

Publications

• Effects of Uninsurance during the Preceding 10 Years on Health Status among Rural Working Age Adults
  Author(s): Janice C. Probst, Charity G. Moore, M. Paige Powell, William Pearson, Amy Brock Martin
  Date: 09 / 2005
  In a population just reaching age 40, continuous health insurance coverage across the preceding 8 to 10 years was not associated with better self-perceived health than interrupted coverage. However, continuous insurance coverage was significantly related to better mental health, with the effect persisting in multivariable analysis controlling for residence, race, and demographic characteristics. Rural residents reaching age 40 in 1998 or 2000 were less likely to have been continuously insured between 1989-2000 than were their urban peers. Executive summary available online.
• Effects of Uninsurance during the Preceding 10 Years On Health Status among Rural Working Age Adults (Fact Sheet)
  Date: 2005
  Used a long-running panel survey, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that began in 1979, to examine the effects of gaps in health insurance coverage on how individuals rate their physical and mental health.