Many rural residents face health care without insurance
North Carolina is one of seven states with the greatest number of people under age 65 without health insurance. Over nineteen percent or 1.4 million North Carolina residents in 2003 were uninsured for the entire year. In rural counties, there were 760,739 people under age 65 who were uninsured. Sixty-one rural counties have more than 20 percent of residents under 65 without health insurance.
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Source: UNC -- Sheps Center, 2003
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More North Carolina residents are living without health insurance.
As unemployment has increased, incomes have declined, poverty has increased and there are more people in North Carolina without health insurance. The percent of the state's population that doesn't have health insurance increased from 14.6 percent in 2000 to 19.4 percent in 2003. There are over 1.4 million people without health coverage in North Carolina.
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Source: UNC -- Sheps Center, 2000-2003
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Infant mortality remains high especially in the Northeast
Statewide, more than eight babies per 1,000 born die within their first year, but the mortality rate varies widely across the state. In the Northeast, the infant mortality rate is nearly 11 per 1,000 births, however this is an improvement over the 1996-2000 period when 13 of every 1,000 babies died.
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Source: State Center for Health Statistics, 2003
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