Access to quality health care when needed promotes and maintains good health, prevents and manages illness, reduces unnecessary disability and premature death, improves quality of life, and is essential for health equity for all community residents.

Access to care includes having:

• Health insurance that facilitates payment for healthcare service,
• Access to the full range of preventive and clinical services when needed and
• A regular source of care that can work with patients to optimize long-term health status (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2021).

Though health insurance does not remove all barriers to receiving needed healthcare services, those with health insurance are more likely than those without insurance to have a regular primary care provider, to receive preventive care, dental care, chronic disease management and mental health services. Those without insurance are often diagnosed at later, less treatable disease stages than those with insurance and have worse health outcomes and higher death rates (National Healthcare Quality Report, 2013).

Besides inadequate or no health insurance, barriers to healthcare may include high costs of care, lack of available services and discrimination in healthcare settings. Access to care can vary by race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, sex, and residential location. 

For more information, see Chapter 5 of the 2023-2024 Guilford County Community Health Assessment.