The large number of rural Georgia residents with inadequate reading skills the ability of the health care system to disseminate health education information via printed materials and severely limits the ability of individuals to fully participate in health care decisions. For residents with good incomes and the ability to travel easily, rural Georgia is a wonderful place to live and work. But too many of Georgia's people live with deep, institutionalized poverty in isolated areas without adequate transportation or local health care providers. Many families live with day to day inadequate homes. Preventive health care is a luxury.
Research shows that elderly people often ration their medications hoping to get by on half doses.
Poverty renders people less able to seek care and, thereby, contributes to the greater probability of illness. Persons living in poverty are more likely to experience crowded or unsanitary living conditions, inadequate nutrition, accidents and job-related injury. Employees may have neither sick leave or health insurance. Large proportions of the individuals and families in these counties cannot afford adequate healthcare, and local government is able to help little because long-term poverty undermines the tax base. Unfortunately, health care is even less available in these poverty areas.