UKnowledge > College of Public Health > Journal of Appalachian Health

Editor-in-Chief:	F. Douglas Scutchfield, MD, University of Kentucky
Senior Associate Editor:	Erin Haynes, DrPH, MS, University of Kentucky
Associate Editor:	Erin Bouldin, MPH, PhD, Appalachian State University
Associate Editor:	Tim Marema, MA, The Daily Yonder
Director of Knowledge Management:	Robert M. Shapiro, MALS, PhD, South East Area Health Education Center Medical Library
Editor of Media Reviews and Reports:	Jennifer Mallow, RN, FNP-BC, PhD, West Virginia University School of Nursing
Managing Editor:	Charlotte S. Seidman, FNP, MHS, MPH, ELS

ARC Releases The Appalachian Region: A Data Overview from 2015–2019 Showing Improving Trends and Economic Vulnerabilities Prior to COVID-19

"The Chartbook” features more than 300,000 data points on Appalachia’s economy, income, employment, education, and other indicators to serve as future baseline for COVID-19 analysis.

WASHINGTON DC, June 10, 2021—Data from the 11th annual update of The Appalachian Region: A Data Overview from the 2015–2019 American Community Survey, released today, indicate that Appalachia was improving in educational attainment, higher income, and reduced poverty prior to COVID, yet continued to lag behind the rest of the nation in broadband access, population health, and other key indicators. Drawing from the latest American Community Survey and comparable Census Population Estimates available as of 2019, the report, also known as “The Chartbook,” contains more than 300,000 data points on Appalachia’s regional, subregional, state, and county levels with comparisons to the rest of the nation. Though the Chartbook data were collected pre-COVID, the report will offer a reliable benchmark and comprehensive base of comparison when COVID-related data become available.

"The annual data shared in The Chartbook play an important role in helping policymakers and other ARC partners make informed and effective development decisions to transform the economic health of Appalachia,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin. “While we were encouraged by the pre-COVID-19 data pointing to improvements in educational attainment, reduced poverty, and increased income in certain parts of our Region, it is essential that we keep a pulse on how the pandemic impacted our Region—and we must pivot to meet the needs of our residents accordingly. Regardless of the improvements we see, The Chartbook points to key areas—such as lagging broadband access and increased health vulnerabilities—that make our Region even more susceptible to the domino effect of COVID-19, especially in the rural communities of Appalachia.”

In addition to the written report, ARC has also released companion web pages on Appalachia’s population and age, employment, education, income and poverty, computer and broadband access, and rural Appalachian counties compared the rest of rural America’s counties

About the Appalachian Regional Commission

The Appalachian Regional Commission (www.arc.gov) is an economic development agency of the federal government and 13 state governments focusing on 420 counties across the Appalachian Region. ARC's mission is to innovate, partner, and invest to build community capacity and strengthen economic growth in Appalachia to help the Region achieve socioeconomic parity with the nation

The overall objective of the Journal of Appalachian Health (JAH) is to improve the health status of the population of Appalachia through the rapid dissemination of knowledge of their health problems and evidence-based solutions to them. JAH will provide actionable knowledge through an online, open access, easily accessible peer-reviewed process focused specifically on Appalachia. JAH is available without charge to authors or readers, including those in the region who can and will use it in their work, whether in a healthcare or a non-healthcare field that has the potential for modification of factors that contribute to poor health.

The Journal of Appalachian Health is a Gold Open Access (Gold OA) journal, published under the Creative Commons (CC) Attribution license CC BY 4.0 International, which means that all users are free to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format; and can remix, transform, and build on the material for any purpose. This CC license requires that you provide attribution by giving appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if any changes have been made.

To ensure that you receive all future issues of the Journal of Appalachian Health, click Receive Future Issues Free on the left navigation bar and join our reader list.