Project Highlights
The Northern Border Region: A Health Focused Landscape
The Northern Border Regional Commission State and Region Chartbooks compile county- and state-level data related to health and health care access for the Northern Border Region and the individual states of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Topics covered in the chartbooks include demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, access to care, health outcomes, mortality rates, Health Professional Shortage Areas, and the location of Rural Health Clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers, hospitals, and substance use treatment facilities.
FMI: Katherine Ahrens, PhD (katherine.ahrens@maine.edu)
Webinar: Dr. Ahrens described this project which compiled the most recent publicly available data related to health and healthcare access at the county-level and state-level for the Northern Border Region: ME, NH, NY, and VT. Additionally, she discussed healthcare professional shortage areas and highlighted counties with worse health outcomes, as compared to the rest of the counties in the region.
Publications:
Ambulance Deserts: Addressing Geographic Disparities in the Provision of Ambulance Services
The declining numbers of rural hospitals and ambulance services imply that remaining ambulance services are being tasked to play a greater role in delivering emergency services in expanded service areas. Additionally, the delivery of ambulance services has not been systematically integrated, particularly in rural areas, leading to gaps in the provision of ambulance services, also known as “ambulance deserts.” To assist state and regional policymakers in formulating strategic plans to address these gaps, this project, led by Dr. Yvonne Jonk, aims to identify geographic disparities in accessing ambulance services by identifying and mapping ambulance deserts within each state, focusing on the following research questions:
- What areas of the states are ambulance deserts and how prevalent are they?
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What percentage of each state’s population lives in an ambulance desert? Are there rural-urban or regional differences in the share of residents living in these deserts?
FMI: Yvonne Jonk, PhD (yvonne.jonk@maine.edu)
Chartbook released May 2023: Ambulance Deserts: Geographic Disparities in the Provision of Ambulance Services
