Michigan Counties With the Fewest Health Nonprofits — And What That Means for Access

Health nonprofits — hospitals, community health centers, mental health organizations, substance use treatment providers, dental clinics, and public health advocacy groups — form a critical layer of Michigan's health care safety net. When this sector is thin, residents who can't access or afford private care have fewer options.

Using NTEE category E–H counts from the IRS Business Master File, Michigan Signals compared health nonprofit density across all 10 tracked counties and cross-referenced those counts with uninsured rates and provider ratios from our dashboard data.

Where Capacity Is Strongest

Ingham County leads with the highest health nonprofit density among our tracked counties — Lansing's health advocacy organizations and MSU's medical programs anchor a strong sector. Washtenaw County follows, powered by University of Michigan Health System's affiliated nonprofits and Ann Arbor's public health research ecosystem. See their dashboards: Ingham | Washtenaw

Where Gaps Are Most Acute

Macomb County has the lowest health nonprofit density in our dataset — roughly 20 organizations per 100,000 residents — alongside an 8% uninsured rate and limited primary care provider density. A county of 880,000 people with this combination warrants close attention. Macomb health data

Kalamazoo County has 88 health nonprofits (6% of its total) — notably lower than Kent (~15%) and Washtenaw (~14%). Bronson Healthcare's affiliated nonprofits anchor the sector, but rural portions of the county have fewer options than the aggregate count suggests. Kalamazoo health data

Livingston County shows low health nonprofit density but also has the lowest uninsured rate in our dataset (5.1%), which moderates the concern. Livingston health data

What This Doesn't Capture

NTEE health category counts treat a large academic medical center and a small volunteer hospice equally — one EIN each. A county with one large hospital system may appear "well served" while lacking community-scale primary care or mental health capacity. For the full picture, county dashboards include provider ratio data from Census County Business Patterns alongside nonprofit counts. For Michigan's mental health access gap specifically, see our analysis of counties with the most limited mental health care access. For the broader nonprofit capacity vs. need question, see our cross-county analysis.

Data Sources

• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer / IRS Business Master File: NTEE codes E–H. Data collected June 2026. projects.propublica.org/nonprofits
• CDC PLACES (2024): Uninsured rates. CDC PLACES
• Census County Business Patterns (2022): Provider ratios. Census CBP