Health communication difficulties and unmet medical needs: An exploratory study

AbstractThis paper will explore how place of residence influences respondents' self-reported health communication difficulties (HCDs) and unmet medical needs (UMNs). Using data from the nationally representative 2003 Community Tracking Study (CTS) Household Survey, the study calculated the proportion of randomly selected respondents from 60 diverse communities, reporting HCDs and UMNs. The percentage of respondents per CTS site reporting HCDs and UMNs varied substantially. Overall, HCDs and UMNs were highly correlated with one another, although several CTS sites were incongruent on these measures. Despite geographic variation, there is a strong correlation between HCDs and UMNs.