Health care access across much of rural America is in a state of crisis. For decades, shifting socioeconomics have depopulated agricultural communities, while COVID-19 accelerated financial and staffing challenges for providers. As a result, millions of residents find themselves stuck in medical deserts, where already-scarce hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies are shuttering at alarming rates.
Low-income seniors suffer some of the worst fallout from these trends, especially in Midwestern and Southern states that didn’t expand Medicaid. Driving hours to an emergency room or specialist can be a matter of life or death for those dealing with serious health ailments, while nursing home consolidation and cost increases limit care options. What’s more, young people are abandoning small towns in droves to seek better opportunities and pay, leaving fewer family members to support elders.
In collaboration with NPR, Tim Evans will travel through a portion of “forgotten America”—sparsely populated regions often overlooked by national politicians and media—to provide vision reporting on this ongoing crisis.
Evans will pass through the nation’s geographic and proverbial heartland on U.S. Highway 83, which cuts through the Great Plains states of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. He will visit struggling farming towns, isolated Indigenous reservations, and assisted living facilities, highlighting a diverse cross-section of those affected by access shortages, providers trying to combat these issues, facilities on the cusp of shutting down, and the physical backdrop of communities bearing the brunt of steady depopulation and economic decline.
