Chun-Yu Ho
Assistant Professor of Economics, University at Albany
Background: Rural areas in the U.S. have been experiencing declines in access to hospital care. Since 2005, there has been 176 rural hospital closures, with considerable variation across states (North Carolina Rural Health Research Program, 2020). More than a fifth of all current rural hospitals are at high risk of closing, in which about two-third of them are considered essential to their community (Navigant 2019). Such trend echoes the access to health care is the top health priority among rural population (Bolin et al. 2015).
Aim 1: To estimate the effect of losing access to hospital care in rural U.S. counties on elderly health outcomes in response to time-sensitive conditions, and to test disparities by race/ethnicity and by education, using Vital Statistics death certificate records from 2005-2018.
Aim 2: To estimate the magnitudes of policy-relevant factors affecting rural elder’ health outcomes directly as well as indirectly through loss of access to hospital care; these policy-relevant factors include the state’s ACA Medicaid expansion status, hospital characteristics, and local market characteristics.