Report details OFHS findings in Northeast Ohio

The Center for Community Solutions and the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University released last week its initial report on an oversampling of Cuyoga, Summit and Lorain counties residents taken as part of the Ohio Family Health Survey (Source: “Profile of the Uninsured in Cuyahoga, Lorain, and Summit Counties: Results from the 2008 Ohio Family Health Survey,” (pdf, 20 pages) The Center for Community Solutions, March 17, 2009).

As in the rest of the state, the uninsured rate for children in the three Northeast Ohio counties was lower in 2008 compared to the 2004 OFHS. However, also like the state as a whole, the uninsured rate for adults was higher in the oversampled counties.

In Cuyahoga County the uninsured rate for adults increased from 14.5 percent in 2004 to 17.6 percent in 2008, while the percentage of uninsured children dropped from 4 percent to 3.4 percent. Lorain County saw an increase in the adult uninsured rate from 11 percent to 15.9 percent, while the rate for children dropped from 4.7 percent to 3.7 percent. Likewise in Summit County, the percentage of adults without coverage went from 15.5 percent to 19.6 percent while percentage of children dropped from 5.3 percent to 3 percent.

A consortium of foundations and planning agencies in Northeast Ohio, led by Cleveland State University, provided funding to support the collection of an additional 2,362 responses to the OFHS in the three counties. That is in addition to the 5,987 responses that were already included in the base sample for those counties. The purpose of the additional responses is to be able to make better inferences for communities and neighborhoods within each county, and to have improved coverage of racial and ethnic minorities in each county.

Information on the Ohio Family Health Survey, including tables with data for all 88 counties, is available at http://ofhs.webexone.com (click the “Enter as a Guest” link underneath the Member Login area).