South Carolina Listening Tour: Our Listening work in Vance, St. Matthews, and Denmark County

United States of Care releases “Report: South Carolina Listening Tour”

United States of Care’s (USofCare) mission is to ensure that everyone has access to quality, affordable health care regardless of health status, social need, or income. As part of our mission and commitment to equity, we engage in authentic listening research to lift voices in communities that have historically been ignored. 

Throughout 2022, our Research and Community Engagement Team has worked with various rural communities in South Carolina to learn about their experiences with the healthcare system. People living in Vance, St. Matthews, and Denmark, SC, were engaged on two separate occasions to not only share their experiences and challenges with the health care system (March 2022) but to work together to find potential solutions to those challenges (September 2022).

The following 5-page report dives into the inequities felt by the populations in the above counties. At a glance, here are some of the suggested solutions that consistently came up across all three counties:

• Increase the number of specialists
• Build/open more health centers and hospitals 
• Local government to offer more services and resources
• Increase health education and awareness of other services 
• Solve transportation issues