INTRODUCTION At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Columbia University, with support from Robin Hood, and T he Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, began collecting data on healthcare access and utilization across New York City via the Poverty Tracker (see text box). The objective was to better understand the healthcare needs of New Yorkers and the difficulties they faced in meeting them. As the pandemic strained healthcare systems nationwide, Poverty Tracker data offered a unique opportunity to understand changes in healthcare access and utilization in New York City. Questions about the pandemic’s lingering effects on healthcare access and utilization continue to be im-portant, especially for vulnerable populations. The Poverty Tracker has attempted to document these changes in healthcare access and utilization. 1 In this brief, we present data on New Yorkers who had high healthcare needs over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021-2022), focusing on the changes in how and where they sought healthcare, their experi-ences making appointments, and their interactions with providers. By charting how these processes have evolved over the pandemic, we can discern why disparities have persisted and help identify pathways to improve healthcare access for all New Yorkers, especially those facing both economic disadvantage and high healthcare needs. Across several indicators tracking places of healthcare receipt, we see that health-care inequities established before the pandemic have started to re-emerge as the height of the pandemic has started to recede.
1 Koutavas, Hussein, Bushman-Copp, and Wimer, “Patterns of Delayed Healthcare Among New Yorkers with High Healthcare Need Over the Course of the Pandemic.”
PLACES OF HEALTHCARE RECEIPT AMONG NEW YORKERS WITH HIGH HEALTHCARE NEED 2
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