Special Series: Health and Healthcare in New York City
In the United States, those with lower incomes experience increased rates of morbidity and mortality. Complicating the matter is the health-poverty trap where poor health leads to reduced incomes, and vice versa, creating a negative feedback loop between health and income. While research examining New Yorkers’ health care needs and their access to health care is sparse, we know that the majority of health care dollars in the U.S. are spent on a small percentage of patients with five percent of Americans accounting for half of all healthcare spending.
This report aims to provide a better understanding of the economic lives of New Yorkers with the highest health care needs. It is the first in a series of three reports which utilize rich longitudinal data on health, health care utilization, and economic well-being collected through Poverty Tracker surveys.
We find that:
More than two million adult New Yorkers have high health care needs, defined as living with multiple chronic health conditions, a work-limiting health condition, and/or severe psychological distress.
Those with high health care needs are more likely to live in poverty and to have trouble paying for routine expenses including food, medical care, and utilities.
Fifteen percent of those with high health care needs have trouble paying for food, compared to just four percent of those without such needs.
Over a five-year period, about 60 percent of those with high health care needs faced poverty in at least one year. Nearly 70 percent faced a material hardship in at least one year.
Featured in Crain’s New York Business: Most New Yorkers with high health care needs faced poverty, Robin Hood report finds.
The Poverty Tracker is a longitudinal study of the dynamics of poverty and disadvantage in New York City. It is a joint project of Robin Hood and Columbia University.
This report is part of a special series funded by the The Helmsley Charitable Trust to provide a better understanding of the economic lives of New Yorkers with the highest health care needs with the aim to improve the city’s health care system and its ability to serve all New Yorkers.
Data for this report, the first in the series, was collected before the pandemic and provides a baseline understanding of the issue. In future reports we will analyze data on health care utilization, collected during the pandemic.