New Findings from Dartmouth College in Managed Care Provides New Insights (Unmet Health Care and Health-related Social Needs of Laundromat Users): Managed Care

2025 JUN 18 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- A new study on Managed Care is now available. According to news originating from Hanover, New Hampshire, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “To estimate the prevalence of unmet health care and health-related social needs (HRSNs) among laundromat users and examine differences by health insurance coverage. Cross-sectional observational study.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Dartmouth College, “We collected a survey from participants in a pilot intervention conducted in 14 Pennsylvania laundromats between September and December 2023. The measures included health insurance coverage, unmet health care needs, and unmet HRSNs. Descriptive analyses and linear probability regression models with laundromat fixed effects were used to estimate the overall prevalence of unmet needs and explore subgroup differences. Among the 1995 sample members, approximately half (52.9%) had Medicaid coverage, 21.7% had private coverage, 14.5% were uninsured, 5.4% had Medicare, and 5.5% were dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid. The prevalence of having any unmet HRSN was higher than having any unmet health care need (54.3% vs 12.3%). Across unmet need measures, Medicaid sample members had 1.5 to 5 times higher levels relative to the privately insured. Differences by insurance coverage remained in fixed-effects analyses that limited comparisons to laundromat users at the same location.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Laundromat-based outreach is likely most promising for Medicaid-serving stakeholders because Medicaid enrollees are disproportionately represented among laundromat users and have disproportionately high levels of unmet needs.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Unmet Health Care and Health-related Social Needs of Laundromat Users. American Journal of Managed Care, 2025;31(5). American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Lindsey Jeanne Leininger, Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business, 100 Tuck Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, United States. Additional authors for this research include Courtney Bragg, Allister Chang and Andrea Palm.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.37765/ajmc.2025.89733. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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