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Quality of care for poor Americans varies widely from state to state

BMJ 2013; 347 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f5729 (Published 20 September 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f5729
  1. Michael McCarthy
  1. 1Seattle

The quality of care given to low income Americans depends a great deal on where they live, a new report says.

The report, prepared by the Commonwealth Fund, looked at 30 indicators of such factors as access to care, provision of preventive care, quality of care, and health outcomes among low income residents of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.1 The fund, a non-partisan foundation headquartered in New York City, discovered disparities between the best and worst performing states of up to fourfold in some measures.

Differences between states were particularly wide in access to affordable care, provision of preventive care, history of dental disease, prescription drug safety, hospitalizations that were potentially preventable, and premature death, the report said.

The proportion of low income adults …

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