2022 E-Insights Report

Health Care

One lesson that the pandemic taught people worldwide is the importance of health care. The resilience of any economy to the pandemic disruption is hinged upon the availability, accessibility, and affordability of the health care. This section presents an analysis related to multiple aspects of health care.

To comprehensively analyze the performance of the Tampa Bay region in terms of health care, researchers categorized health care indicators into five categories: public health status, COVID-related measures, access to health care, and government spending on health care. They used data from traditional sources such as the Center for Disease Control and County health rankings, as well as from real-time sources such as 211 calls and Google Trends. Researchers analyzed 211 call data to understand the mental health and addiction related concerns in the community. They used Google Trends data to derive insights on COVID-19 concern and searches for vaccinations in the comparison communities.

To analyze the access to health care in the comparison communities, scholars tracked the population-to-primary health care provider ratio, the population-to-mental health care provider ratio, and access to affordable health care.

Researchers tracked government spending on public health through Medicare spending per capita and Health Resources and Services Administration grants per capita.