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Health Care Access Research

Rural-Urban Definitions	Tables,  Fact Sheets, Reports, Presentations
Health Care Infrastructure Mapping Project	For More Information

Rural-Urban Definitions

What is Rural?
Rural is defined in many different ways.  The link below is a Power Point presentation that  provides a review of the major tools available for comparing rural and urban areas.
Information on Rural Definitions WA State (April 2006)  (pdf 6.2 MB)

Sub-County Level: Zip Code and Census Tract
Rural-Urban Commuting Areas  (RUCA) classification system is the current "state of the art" tool for classifying rural areas. The spreadsheets contain 4 and 10  level sub-county consolidations of the codes.

• 2000 RUCA codes  by 2006 Zip Code - (June 2007) (Excel 344 KB)
• 2000 RUCA codes by 2004 ZIP Code (April 2006)   (Excel 536 KB)
• 2000 RUCA Codes by 2000 Census Tracts (Excel 422 KB)

County Level Rural-Urban Definitions

The County Level definition combines definitions from several state and federal agencies to determine Rural-Urban status. 
County Definitions of Rural for Washington (April 2006) (Excel 543 KB)

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Tables, Fact Sheets, Reports and Presentations
The links below are a collection of OCRH assessments and inventories.

Tables

• Safety Net Clinic Locations (January 2005)     (Excel 126KB)
   

Fact Sheets

• Tracking Health in Rural Areas
  Rural Washington: Closing Health Disparities (pdf 98KB)
   

• OCRH Series on Rural-Urban Disparities

  • NEW  Profile of a Typical Rural Resident (pdf 46KB)

  • Age Matters: Who Lives in Rural Washington? (pdf 28KB)

  • Closing the Gap in Health Care Coverage (pdf 27KB)

  • How Many Agencies does it Take to Define Rural? (pdf 27KB)

  • Critical Access Hospital (CAHs) Medicaid Charges are About Three Percent (pdf 37KB)

 

Reports and Presentations:

• Keeping Track of Rural Health (Presentation pdf 526KB)  Presented at Washington State Joint Health Conference October 9, 2007
• Health of Washington State Report  A state-wide assessment of the health status and health care access in Washington which includes sections on Health Care Services Infrastructure and Health Insurance Coverage.

• Primary Care Access for Medicare Beneficiaries in Selected Washington State Counties  (August 2005)   (pdf 197KB)

• Washington’s Primary Care Safety Net (July 2004)  (pdf 91KB):  Assesses primary care capacity and discusses the present and future of safety net services for the low income and uninsured. The report also describes the more limited roles of Rural Health Clinics, Tribal Health Clinics, and Family Practice Residency Programs in improving access for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

• County Reports
  These reports provide detailed information on changes in provider capacity and willingness to accept new patients by payer.

2005	2004	2003	2002
Clark (June 2005, PDF, 331KB)	Snohomish (July 2004, Word, 508KB)	Grant (October 2003, Word, 510KB)	Yakima (November 2002, Word, 927KB)
	Whatcom (July 2004, Word, 660KB)	Thurston (May 2003, Word, 506K\B)	Chelan and Douglas (August 2003, Word, 464 KB))
	Kitsap (April 2004, Word, 1.7MB)	Spokane (January 2003, Word, 507KB)

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Health care Infrastructure Mapping Project

The Health Care Infrastructure Mapping Project is an effort to map the location of essential health care services in Washington State.
Washington Healthcare Infrastructure Mapping Project

For more information on additional web sources see Washington Rural Health Assessment Project

For more information contact:
Zeynep Shorter
Telephone: (360) 236-2806
Email: zeynep.shorter@doh.wa.gov

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