Health Access in America
Three layers, one map: mental health shortage areas, food deserts, and uninsured rates by state. Toggle between them to see how access barriers compound.
Health access in America is not one problem. It is three overlapping problems — mental health provider shortages, food deserts, and insurance gaps — that compound in the same communities, affecting the same people. This map makes the overlap visible.
Toggle between the three layers and a pattern emerges: the states where mental health professionals are scarcest tend to be the same states where uninsured rates are highest and where food access is worst. These are not coincidences. They are the downstream effects of the same policy choices — underinvestment in public health infrastructure, resistance to Medicaid expansion, and rural economies that cannot sustain the services their populations need.
What You’re Looking At
Mental Health Shortage shows the percentage of each state’s population living in a federally designated Health Professional Shortage Area for mental health. Nationally, roughly 37% of Americans live in these areas — but in some states, the figure exceeds 60%.
Food Access maps the share of each state’s population that is both low-income and lives far from a grocery store — more than a mile in urban areas, more than ten miles in rural ones. These are the USDA’s “food deserts,” places where eating well requires a car, time, and money that many residents don’t have.
Uninsured Rate tracks the percentage of the non-elderly population without health insurance. Non-expansion states — those that declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act — show consistently higher rates.
Why These Three Layers Together
Foundation treats healthcare and mental health as separate components because mental health is systematically undertreated in America. But the map makes clear that access barriers don’t respect these categories. A person in rural Mississippi facing a mental health crisis is likely also food-insecure and uninsured. The barriers stack. The map shows where.
Sources
- Mental Health Shortage: HRSA Health Professional Shortage Areas, via KFF analysis, 2024
- Food Access: USDA Food Access Research Atlas, 2019
- Uninsured Rate: Census ACS / KFF State Health Facts, 2023
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