Health Care, Access

Christine Cajfrey

Several indicators measure the level of access to health care. Among these, typically using a 12-month period of focus, are an individual's health care coverage and whether or not an individual saw or spoke to a doctor or visited an emergency room. In addition, determining who uses certain preventative health care, like dental services, prescription drugs, mammo-grams, cancer screenings, and pap smears, also gauges health care access. Among adults ages 18 to 64, about 17 percent have no usual source of health care. In a given year, about 16 percent of adults do not see a doctor, visit an emergency room, or have home health care. About 20 percent of Americans ages 18 to 64 visit the emergency room once, and 7 percent visit it 2 or more times. Two thirds of adults see a dentist annually, 70 percent of women over the age of 40 have a mammogram once ...

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