Fewer Americans getting primary care is raising concerns
Fewer Americans are getting primary care than before, according to a national analysis of trends in the field by Harvard Medical School researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The trend is alarming, the authors of the analysis said, because lack of consistent primary care does not bode well for population health or the sustainability of the health care system. Research has shown that people who have primary care have longer, healthier lives and are happier with their care. The study also found a particularly marked decline in primary care among younger Americans and those without complex medical issues. Its findings will be published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. “Primary care is the thread that runs through the fabric of all health care, and this study demonstrates we are potentially slowly unweaving that fabric,” said David Levine, Harvard Medical School instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he practices...