Reasons for Use of Out-of-County Health Care Facilities in the Mississippi Delta

Mississippi has a long-standing place as one of the least healthy states in the country. Problems related to chronic illness, high mortality, and insufficient medical infrastructure are magnified within the state's Delta region. Efforts to improve patient care require an understanding of the areas of weakness in current health care provision. Thus, the present analysis focuses on 16 Delta counties, using analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine mean differences in agreement at the county level, with five potential reasons that respondents might choose to leave their home county for health care: quality, availability, familiarity, convenience, and cost.