Association Between a Measure of Community Economic Distress and Medicare Patients’ Health Care Utilization, Quality, Outcomes, and Costs

While geographic variation in Medicare health services utilization and costs has been studied for decades, recent work has suggested that community-level social determinants of health1—including local economic activity2,3—might explain geographically defined disparities in health service utilization and outcomes. In the context of the aftermath of the Great Recession and its impact on healthcare needs,4 we sought to explore the relationship between community-level economic distress and Medicare patients’ health care use, quality, outcomes, and costs.