Abstract
Purpose
To understand the ways in which societal and individual barriers to healthcare access shape chronic noncommunicable disease (NCD) burden for Idaho residents, who are disproportionately affected by rurality.
Methods
We develop a survey that measures patient perspectives on their ability to access care and their accompanying health outcomes. We estimate multiple logistic regression models predicting odds that a patient reports no NCDs, one NCD, or more than one NCD.
Findings
Older age is strongly associated with more self-reported chronic conditions in our sample, though not linearly increasing by age group. Worse self-rated health is also associated with more chronic conditions. Our findings also demonstrate that some sociodemographic characteristics do not shape chronic disease outcomes as expected from other studies, which may have unique implications for the Idaho population.
Conclusions
Given the rapidly aging population in Idaho, our findings have implications for future health outcomes, access to healthcare, and impact of physician shortage in the state. Results from this study also demonstrate the ways in which some sociodemographic variables may not have protective effects in Idaho as they do in other settings.