November 5, 2011: SHADAC has been working with states on monitoring health insurance coverage for more than a decade, and the one thing that states consistently want to know is how health insurance coverage varies at the at the sub-state level—more specifically, they want to know their rate of uninsurance by region or by county.
The Census Bureau produces county-level coverage estimates through its Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE) program using sophisticated modeling techniques. The SAHIE numbers for 2008 and 2009 are now available, and for the first time they use data inputs from the American Community Survey, as a result of which the estimates are more precise and timelier than they have been in the past.
View the newest SHADAC issue brief for an explanation on how the SAHIE estimates are developed; a comparison between the SAHIE model-based methodology and the American Community Survey; and an overview of how the 2008 and 2009 SAHIE modeled estimates are different from those of previous years.
For more details about the 2008 and 2009 SAHIE, click here; or click here to explore the Interactive SAHIE Map Tool.