This study examines state- and county-level data for the 13 Appalachian states from the 2014-2018 American Community Survey (ACS) and from U.S. Census Bureau population estimates on topics including population, age, race and ethnicity, housing occupancy and tenure, education, labor force, employment and unemployment, income and poverty, health insurance coverage, disability status, migration patterns, and veteran status. Additionally, data are provided on types of housing units, homeownership, types of living arrangements, travel time to work and location of work, and income-to-poverty ratio. New to the study this year are trends in the bachelor’s degree field of study and an appendix comparing rural Appalachia to rural areas outside the Appalachian Region.

Information is summarized for five Appalachian subregions and five metro designations. The report also compares data from two recent non-overlapping time periods, allowing the study of trends.

Full Report in PDF (52 MB)

Supplementary Files

• Full Report in PDF (52 MB)
• All Report Maps (Zip file: 21 MB; includes 96 PNG files, approximately 250 KB each, and 1 TXT file)
• All Report Data (Excel file: 13 MB): This file contains the data presented in the report's tables and maps. It includes data for all U.S. counties and states, the Appalachian Region, and the five Appalachian subregions.

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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.

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