A snapshot of health disparities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware

Pennsylvania

Asian Americans reported experiencing some of the best health care outcomes, access and quality in the commonwealth, followed closely by white residents.

This isn’t particularly surprising, Radley said, as these findings often correspond to income levels.

“White people and Asian Americans tend to have higher incomes on average than Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people in the country,” he said. “That really does sort of factor into underlying health risks and opportunities within the health care system.”

There continues to be a significant gap between those two racial groups and others. Hispanic and Black Pennsylvanians experienced, on average, higher rates of obesity, smoking and deaths from preventable causes.

New Jersey

About 27% of Hispanic adults were uninsured in 2023 and 2024, and 27% also reported going without health care because of potential costs.

While most older Black women in New Jersey received a recent mammogram, they were significantly more likely to die from breast cancer compared to other women in the Garden State. Delays in follow-up care, later-stage diagnoses and health insurance issues could play a role, researchers said.

Delaware

Black babies in Delaware were twice as likely to die compared to white babies, the report shows. Just over half of Black infants and toddlers had all recommended vaccines compared to 67% of Black babies nationally.

About 14% of Hispanic children and 27% of Hispanic adults in Delaware lacked health insurance, compared to 5% of white children and 6% of white adults in the state.