By Paul Ricci Much has been made of the clash between Gov. Josh Shapiro and HHS secretary Robert Kennedy Jr with Kennedy disputing the 2 measles deaths in the state. The state maintains a dashboard showing the measles outbreak numbers in the Pennsylvania. I will now look at what these numbers are saying. The image […]

by Paul Ricci Annually the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) comes out with an Unmet Need Score (UNS) for every zip code in the U.S. The UNS is a composite of 33 health variables at the zip code level. This post will focus on the 100 zip codes with the highest UNSs in Pennsylvania. […]

by Paul Ricci Watching Dr. Anthony Fauci get grilled by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee brought back a lot of memories of the struggles of the pandemic. The committee is chaired by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). He is a trained ophthalmologist. Senator Paul is now pursuing contempt of Congress charges against Fauci after he […]

In the post on flu vaccination rates and Trump’s 2024 vote, I was asked on reddit what the relationship was between gas prices and Trump’s approval rating. I told them that this data was not available on the county level but it was available on the state level. AAA keeps track of average gas prices […]

The next variable in the County Health Rankings updated is Flu Vaccinations. The data is from 2023 from the Medicare database for Medicare enrollees. The overall flu vaccination rate for the state was 52% which was higher than the U.S. rate of 44%. Potter county had the lowest rate at 26%. Montgomery had the highest […]

I have used County Health Rankings for years on this site to provide insight into the social ills plaguing the Allegheny mountains. Last year they lost their main funder, the Robert Wood Johnston Foundation. They are not doing major data releases now, but they update their site as new data is released. This post focuses […]

I have used County Health Rankings for years on this site to provide insight into the social ills plaguing the Alleghenies. Last year they lost their main funder, the Robert Wood Johnston Foundation. They are not doing the major data releases now, but they are updating their site as new data are released. This post […]

Last week I posted on the new Small Area Income and Poverty Esimates (SAIPE) for the U.S. and Pennsylvania and for Cambria and Forest Counties. The poverty rates for the U.S., Pennsylvania, and every county in the state are presented in the table at the bottom of the post. Subsequently, this post will look at […]

Much is made of the recent property tax increase that the Cambria County commissioners passed — a 6.75 mill increase. This means that for every $1,000 in property value, the owner must pay an additional $6.75 in property tax. This post will take a look specifically at the impact of property tax hikes for Cambria […]

The end of the year is a time for reflecting on 2025 for Allegheny Independent Media. We have had 68 posts this year on a variety of issues in the Allegheny Mountains. By comparison there were 50 posts in 2024, a 36% increase. We had 11 posts by Lyrical Capo, 3 posts by Jackie Allison […]