Political, Racial, and Household Income Barriers for Access to Healthcare in Illinois Counties

Access to health care impacts many people throughout the United States, as it restricts their ability to solve their health concerns. People who have the highest risk of a lack of access include people who are uninsured, people a part of a specific social class, or people belonging to a specific political party. In a particular geographical region, these factors could lead to groups of people suffering because of circumstances that they cannot control in their region. In my project, I determine how better access to healthcare and the percentage of people insured are affected by a measurement of the percentage of black people, percentage of democratic party votes, and median household income in all Illinois counties. For my original hypothesis, I tested this using regression analysis and expected that there would be a positive relationship between the percentage of black people, democratic votes, and median household income and the percentage of people insured in Illinois counties. The most significant variable when I tested my hypothesis turned out to be the percentage of black people in the counties. This relationship between the percentage of black people and people insured in Illinois counties concludes that counties the contain a larger black population have a lower percentage of people insured than counties that have a smaller black population. Although the other factors that I tested did not have as much of a significant result, these factors come into play when dealing with healthcare access. If I had more time to research this, I would like to find the correlation between other minority groups and percentage of people insured in other state counties. My results from my study can help Illinois lawmakers in creating changes in certain counties, so that healthcare can be more equal across all of Illinois, regardless of these factors