Blog & News
Updates to Minnesota's Community and Uninsured Profile Resource to Reflect 2016-2020 ACS Estimates
June 2, 2022:Following the release of the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-year data file (2016-2020), SHADAC has made important updates to the Minnesota Community and Uninsured Profile resource to incorporate an analysis of the 2020 data.
The Community and Uninsured Profile can be used in two ways: (1) to support other equity-focused work, advocacy work, strategic planning, community needs assessments, and grant-writing, and (2) to target health insurance coverage outreach and enrollment efforts.
The Community and Uninsured Profile provides rates and counts of Minnesotans at a range of geographic levels. Users can explore characteristics of the total population and the uninsured population in a specific ZIP code while also overlaying in-depth community characteristics. In addition, users can look at rates and characteristics of the community and uninsured within the state as a whole, by region, county, and state legislative district. Users can also filter by MNsure rating areas -- the geographic regions health insurers use to set premiums on MNsure.
This resource was originally developed as part of “Minnesota’s Uninsured and the Communities in Which They Live,” a project funded by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota that supports targeted outreach and enrollment activities of health insurance navigators and provides information about the uninsured to Minnesota policymakers as they develop strategies to reach the remaining uninsured in Minnesota.
To download the Profile, access additional information, or request the development of a similar tool for another state, visit the Minnesota Community and Uninsured Profile Resource page.
Publication
Comparing Federal Government Surveys That Count the Uninsured: 2021
With the release of new insurance coverage estimates from surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), SHADAC has updated our annual “Comparing Federal Government Surveys that Count the Uninsured” brief.
The brief provides an annual update to comparisons of uninsurance estimates from four federal surveys:
- The American Community Survey (ACS)
- The Current Population Survey (CPS)
- The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Household Component (MEPS-HC)
- The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
In this brief, SHADAC presents current and historical national estimates of uninsurance along with the most recent available state-level estimates from these surveys (where possible). We also discuss the main reasons for variation in the estimates across the different surveys as well as possible reasons for incomparability of estimates across and within the surveys.
Due to the substantial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on federal survey data collection and production, this year the brief also includes a brief overview of the unique challenges faced by each agency conducting the four surveys due to pandemic-related disruptions, how the agencies addressed and compensated for these challenges, and what these impacts mean in terms of utilizing survey data on health insurance coverage for 2020.
Download a PDF of the Comparing Federal Government Surveys Brief.
Last year’s brief with data from the 2020 collection year, and certain 2019 collection-year data, can be accessed here.