Click on a state to view rates of child Medicaid/CHIP coverage by school district.

Methodology

These data come from the U.S. Census Bureau 2016-2020 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates, Table B27010: Types of Health Insurance Coverage by Age. Please note that, because of differences in sample size and data processing, the estimates published here may differ from other estimates produced using either the 1-year ACS estimates or ACS microdata (including the Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) or the University of Minnesota’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)), despite the fact that all of these datasets are based on the same American Community Survey.

Because of data quality issues related to the pandemic, the Census Bureau did not publish standard 1-year estimates for 2020. However, they did publish standard 5-year estimates for 2016-2020 after revising their methodology to reduce the impact of the 2020 data quality issues (see here for more information).

The Census Bureau provides a margin of error (MOE) at a 90 percent confidence level for each estimate it publishes. Although we do not publish margins of error in these tables, they are available upon request. CCF calculates coefficients of variation (CVs, also known as relative standard errors) to measure data reliability for each estimate. CCF suppresses any estimate with a CV larger than 25 percent.

ACS data represents a “point-in-time” estimate of an individual’s insurance coverage, meaning that the survey collects information on the respondent’s coverage only at the moment they complete the form, not at another point during the year. (The ACS is conducted over the course of the year.) Please note that ACS estimates are not adjusted by the Census Bureau (or by CCF) to address the “Medicaid undercount” often observed when comparing surveys to the reported numbers of individuals enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP using federal and state administrative data. Recent research on the decennial Census shows that young children are consistently and significantly undercounted, likely worsening the Medicaid undercount among children. In 2020, the Medicaid continuous coverage provision may affect children’s reported coverage source—including uninsurance—if families are unaware that they still have Medicaid coverage.

“Children” are defined as individuals under age 19 (ages 0-18).