South Carolina ranks 13th worst state for health care access

Access to health care remains a challenge in many parts of the country, including South Carolina, according to a recent study.

In a list compiled by HealthGrove, South Carolina ranked 13th worst state for health care access, while Georgia earned the worst score in the country.

For the study, HealthGrove used data from the Kaiser Family Foundation  that includes physician density, dentist density, the percent of residents insured, the percent of mental health need met and the number of staffed hospital beds per capita as well as data from the Health Indicators Warehouse, the U.S. Census and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to create a Health Care Access Score and find the worst county in every state.

This score looks at physician density, dentist density, percent insured, median household income, number of mental health care shortage areas and whether or not there is a medicare-registered hospital in the county.

Each county in every state was scored on a scale from 0-100 with 100 being the highest. Beaufort County scored 56.21 while the state of South Carolina scored 34.47. Lee County scored the worst in the state.

According to the data, rural, sparsely populated counties tend to have the lowest access to health care. The majority of counties on the list have 50,000 people or fewer, and thus qualify as rural. This disparity in access has existed for decades. 

Source: Graphiq

This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 9:34 AM with the headline "South Carolina ranks 13th worst state for health care access."