Rural Health Information Hub Latest News

The Number of Uninsured Children Improved Slightly During the Pandemic

The number of uninsured children in Pennsylvania improved during the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to the federal continuous coverage provision that prevents states from disenrolling children and families from Medicaid during the public health emergency, according to the State of Children’s Health report by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children. Pennsylvania’s child uninsured rate improved to 4.4% from 4.6% between 2019 and 2021 as families weathered the pandemic storm under the umbrella of public health coverage, with Medicaid enrollees having uninterrupted access to health insurance that connects them to doctor visits, immunizations, and well-visits that screen for physical and mental health. Learn more.

Health Centers Hit a Historic Milestone of Patients Served

Our nation’s health centers do invaluable work to reduce health disparities and advance health equity in communities across the country. Emerging from the worst of the pandemic, health centers are now facing unprecedented demand for services. They’re providing affordable, high-quality primary health care to millions of people nationwide. HRSA expects to publish the 2021 Uniform Data System (UDS) data on Monday, August 8. The data will appear in HRSA’s Data Warehouse on the Health Center Program Data and Reporting webpages. Join a Tuesday, August 9, 1:00 – 2:00 pm HRSA webinar to learn about trends in the 2021 data on health center patient demographics, staffing, and clinical quality measures. Attendees will gain insights into health centers’ growth, recovery, and performance. Register here.

New from the CDC: Rural Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Data

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shared a new resource from the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention.  The Local Trends in Heart Disease and Stroke Mortality report provides detailed maps and graphics documenting county-level heart disease and stroke mortality and trends within each state. The report includes data for most counties in all states, including the most rural. This report can be used to enhance and inform cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment programs and policies.

For each state, the Local Trends in Heart Disease and Stroke Mortality report includes:

  • County-level maps of death rates for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke
  • County-level maps of trends in CHD and stroke death rates
  • Figures depicting comparisons of county-level death rates and historical trends for CHD & stroke
  • All graphics are presented by age group (ages 35-64; ages 65 and older)
  • A CSV file containing all data used to make the report.

The Local Trends in Heart Disease and Stroke Mortality report for each state, along with the underlying dataset, is available by request. To get the report, please contact Adam Vaughan at avaughan@cdc.gov. Additionally, the data are available on chronicdata.cdc.gov.