THURSDAY, Sept. 21, 2023 (HealthDay News) — More than 10 million people lived in U.S. counties without psychiatrists and broadband coverage in 2020, according to a research letter published online Sept. 14 in JAMA Network Open.
Tarun Ramesh, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues examined the prevalence of U.S. counties without psychiatrists and broadband coverage. The analysis included data from the American Community Survey, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Area Health Resources Files (psychiatrist workforce), and the Federal Communications Commission characterization of insufficient broadband.
The researchers found that 19.0 percent of all U.S. counties were without psychiatrists and broadband, representing 10.5 million residents. These counties were more likely to be rural (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 3.05), have higher unemployment (aOR, 1.12), have lower proportions of the population with bachelor’s degrees (aOR, 0.92), and be Hispanic (aOR, 0.98). However, these counties were not associated with the HRSA mental health professional shortage area designation. Counties without psychiatrists and broadband had higher rates of drug overdose mortality (9.2 versus 5.2 per 100,000) and completed suicide (10.6 versus 7.6 per 100,000) when adjusting for differences between the two county categories.
“Our finding suggests that lacking access to virtual and in-person psychiatric care continues to be a key factor associated with adverse outcomes after controlling for county-level sociodemographic status,” the authors write.
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