I am from a county in Florida that varies significantly in wealth. We have a good amount of hospitals and clinics and wealthy white individuals will have no difficulty finding medical care. However, I feel as though from my perspective it is underserved. I am a Hispanic woman from a more low-income household and I came in contact with many undocumented immigrants who had very low-paying jobs and struggled to survive. I have seen firsthand how this affects their medical care as many of them are afraid to go to doctors (especially now that our governor has passed several anti-immigrant laws that require people to report immigrants) or cannot pay for it because they cannot apply for insurance. In fact, some people from church have passed away from lack of medical care due to their inability to have easy access to medicine without putting them in lifelong debt. I guess my question is, could I say that my community is underserved despite legally is possibly not being considered as such?
Am I from a "medically underserved" area?
- Thread starter holr2001
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The government uses several different terms to designate areas lacking adequate medical care. This page has a good breakdown of the different terms:
bhw.hrsa.gov
According to this page, health professional shortage areas "can be geographic areas, populations, or facilities. These areas have a shortage of primary, dental, or mental health care providers."
Medically underserved areas or populations "identify geographic areas and populations with a lack of access to primary care services."
Here are links to maps of the US showing the areas of the United States that are considered medically underserved or shortage areas:
You can see that there are more HPSAs than MUAs. You can search by zip code to see what designations apply to your area - you may be in a HPSA, but it doesn't qualify as a MUA, or there may be a little MUA inside of your larger, wealthy zip code. In any case, that doesn't mean that there aren't underserved people in your area or that you can't talk about the healthcare disparities you have seen as part of your application.
What Is Shortage Designation? | Bureau of Health Workforce
Learn about the different types of shortage designations and understand how federal programs use shortage designations for resource distribution.
According to this page, health professional shortage areas "can be geographic areas, populations, or facilities. These areas have a shortage of primary, dental, or mental health care providers."
Medically underserved areas or populations "identify geographic areas and populations with a lack of access to primary care services."
Here are links to maps of the US showing the areas of the United States that are considered medically underserved or shortage areas:
You can see that there are more HPSAs than MUAs. You can search by zip code to see what designations apply to your area - you may be in a HPSA, but it doesn't qualify as a MUA, or there may be a little MUA inside of your larger, wealthy zip code. In any case, that doesn't mean that there aren't underserved people in your area or that you can't talk about the healthcare disparities you have seen as part of your application.
