A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States
Medicaid is the largest health insurance program in the United States, covering more than 86 million Americans as of early 2023, and is key for progress towards health equity. Although policy changes like Medicaid expansion have significantly expanded the number of people who are eligible for Medica...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2024-04-01
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| Series: | Data in Brief |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340924000416 |
| _version_ | 1797256358544801792 |
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| author | Paul R. Shafer Maxwell Palmer Ahyoung Cho Mara Lynch Pierce Louis Alexandra Skinner |
| author_facet | Paul R. Shafer Maxwell Palmer Ahyoung Cho Mara Lynch Pierce Louis Alexandra Skinner |
| author_sort | Paul R. Shafer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Medicaid is the largest health insurance program in the United States, covering more than 86 million Americans as of early 2023, and is key for progress towards health equity. Although policy changes like Medicaid expansion have significantly expanded the number of people who are eligible for Medicaid, the administrative burdens of enrolling in and renewing coverage can be substantial. Although many applications are now submitted online, physical access to Medicaid offices still plays a critical role in understanding eligibility, getting help in applying, and navigating required documentation for both initial enrollment and redetermination of eligibility. However, as more government functions have moved online, in-person office locations and/or staff may have been cut to reduce costs, and gentrification has shifted where minoritized, marginalized, and/or low-income populations live, it is unclear if the key local connection point between residents and Medicaid has been maintained. To our knowledge, no single source of Medicaid office locations has been assembled and made available for research purposes. Our objective was to identify and geocode all public-facing Medicaid offices in the United States, which can then be paired with other spatial data (e.g., demographics, Medicaid participation, health care use, health outcomes) to explore policy-relevant research questions. We identified Medicaid office addresses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by searching state government websites (e.g., Department of Health and Human Services or analogous state agency). Our corpus of Medicaid office addresses was then geocoded using the Census Geocoder with unresolved addresses investigated and/or manually geocoded using Google Maps. After deduplication (e.g., where multiple counties share a single office) and removal of mailing addresses (e.g., PO Boxes), our final dataset includes 3026 Medicaid office locations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T11:25:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-98b002e335494cf9b982cf9a3b1615e3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2352-3409 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T22:20:29Z |
| publishDate | 2024-04-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Data in Brief |
| spelling | doaj.art-98b002e335494cf9b982cf9a3b1615e32024-03-20T06:09:35ZengElsevierData in Brief2352-34092024-04-0153110068A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United StatesPaul R. Shafer0Maxwell Palmer1Ahyoung Cho2Mara Lynch3Pierce Louis4Alexandra Skinner5Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management, Boston University, 715 Albany Street Talbot 340 West, Boston, MA 02118, United States; Corresponding author.Department of Political Science, Boston University, United StatesDepartment of Political Science, Boston University, United StatesSchool of Law, Boston University, United StatesDepartment of Environmental Health, Boston University, United StatesDepartment of Epidemiology, Brown University, United StatesMedicaid is the largest health insurance program in the United States, covering more than 86 million Americans as of early 2023, and is key for progress towards health equity. Although policy changes like Medicaid expansion have significantly expanded the number of people who are eligible for Medicaid, the administrative burdens of enrolling in and renewing coverage can be substantial. Although many applications are now submitted online, physical access to Medicaid offices still plays a critical role in understanding eligibility, getting help in applying, and navigating required documentation for both initial enrollment and redetermination of eligibility. However, as more government functions have moved online, in-person office locations and/or staff may have been cut to reduce costs, and gentrification has shifted where minoritized, marginalized, and/or low-income populations live, it is unclear if the key local connection point between residents and Medicaid has been maintained. To our knowledge, no single source of Medicaid office locations has been assembled and made available for research purposes. Our objective was to identify and geocode all public-facing Medicaid offices in the United States, which can then be paired with other spatial data (e.g., demographics, Medicaid participation, health care use, health outcomes) to explore policy-relevant research questions. We identified Medicaid office addresses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by searching state government websites (e.g., Department of Health and Human Services or analogous state agency). Our corpus of Medicaid office addresses was then geocoded using the Census Geocoder with unresolved addresses investigated and/or manually geocoded using Google Maps. After deduplication (e.g., where multiple counties share a single office) and removal of mailing addresses (e.g., PO Boxes), our final dataset includes 3026 Medicaid office locations.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340924000416MedicaidOfficesAccessEnrollmentCaseworkersAdministrative burdens |
| spellingShingle | Paul R. Shafer Maxwell Palmer Ahyoung Cho Mara Lynch Pierce Louis Alexandra Skinner A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States Data in Brief Medicaid Offices Access Enrollment Caseworkers Administrative burdens |
| title | A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States |
| title_full | A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States |
| title_fullStr | A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States |
| title_full_unstemmed | A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States |
| title_short | A dataset of geocoded Medicaid office locations in the United States |
| title_sort | dataset of geocoded medicaid office locations in the united states |
| topic | Medicaid Offices Access Enrollment Caseworkers Administrative burdens |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340924000416 |
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