Updated June 18.
New health reports and public surveys of Island residents published this year have shown that tick-borne conditions are rising rapidly, behavioral and mental health markers are worsening, and locals are feeling an increasing strain in regard to housing and affordability.
The data provides a baseline for understanding the health of the Island community and a new path along which people have advocated for healthcare. It also has inspired new programs and initiatives that are rising to meet those needs.
A recent report by Island Health Care in partnership with the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, called the “Community Health Needs Assessment,” shows that health is a moving target on the Vineyard.
In response, leaders of both Island Health Care and the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital are among a growing list of medical enterprises that have launched new services, hired new staff, and even dedicated walk-in centers: one for ticks and another for integrated services. Others include Martha’s Vineyard Medical’s new tick center, primary care telehealth at the hospital, and overall increased transportation programs for older adults.
Island Health Care and the hospital were prompted to take action based on data they collected together over the course of 2025. The organizations then published separate reports on each health groups’ respective websites under the same title: “Community Health Needs Assessment.” Between the reports, the reality of health needs for Islanders is clear: The issues facing year-rounders aren’t all new, but they are becoming more dire.
In response to those shifting tides, the public survey that accompanied the report showed that the majority of Islanders are asking practitioners to step up and meet their health needs by looking at the whole picture. This demand for intersectional healthcare — taking into account environmental, physical, mental, and emotional factors — is a pivot from some traditional Western medicinal models. But for many Islanders, the holistic approach sometimes seemed out of reach as expensive healthcare premiums and doctor’s visits sometimes far exceed a month’s rent or mortgage. At the end of the day, Islanders are searching for good value in health care, and they want their money’s worth.
“It was really clear that the community thinks of things like housing stability, food and nutrition and security, and good careers as core to not just health but actually healthcare,” Lucy Hackney, chief operating officer at Island Health Care, told The Times.
A new mobile unit for same-day primary care at Island Health Care was soft-launched in early June, and will officially open this July. And the group is planning to build a new, integrated healthcare center near its Edgartown campus that sprawls 9,000 square feet, compared with the 760-square-foot space they currently operate.
“We are creative with how we deliver services,” Sam Mitchell, Island Health Care’s director of communications and strategic development, told The Times Wednesday. He said many of their staff members work remotely, but the new space could ensure patients are seen in person rather than via telehealth: “Bringing them all under one roof … would be a massive thing for the community.”
In addition, the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital launched a new tick clinic and bolstered its walk-in services, seeing the need amid risking tick illnesses, and joining other initiatives like that of the Martha’s Vineyard Medical Tick Center.
“This location will offer express care, a tick-bite clinic, as well as ophthalmology and audiology services. We are pleased to expand access to state-of-the-art care for up-Island communities, and value the strong collaboration with our infectious disease colleagues across the Mass General Brigham system,” hospital president Claire Seguin said in a statement in April regarding the center.
The hospital also added telehealth for primary care appointments this spring, to assist people on a long waitlist; the additional centers are geared toward in-person care.
In addition to health concerns like ticks and primary care, factors like federal immigration enforcement for the Jamaican and Brazilian community and rising health insurance rates have intensified the fear locals are feeling in a community that is otherwise safer than the mainland, with lower violent crime rates and many front doors left unlocked.
Although specific data points are unknown by practitioners, many have said that the local Brazilian community is afraid to send their children to school or attend their doctor’s appointments in person due to the arrests that have occurred on-Island. This reduced access to care has many implications, such as a spread of illness because of a missed doctor’s appointment or symptoms going unaddressed and conditions worsening.
Island Health Care is a federally qualified health center, meaning the group receives federal funds and accepts patients regardless of immigration status, their ability to pay, or insurance status.
The impression Mitchell had from the data was that Islanders see their health needs as deeply intersectional with their lives, and that year-round residents are “feeling pressures from all these different directions.”
“People don’t just limit their ideas about what a health challenge is to healthcare and access to healthcare. They think about transportation and housing and access to food and quality jobs as being part and parcel of what it means to live a life on the Island and be able to thrive here,” Mitchell said.
He said the health group sees it as a “call to action,” especially since Island Health Care is what he described as a “safety net provider.”
“Also in our collaborations with other organizations, we’re really trying to think about how to relieve pressures on all these different metrics,” Mitchell said.
Although some data are mirrored in each health report, each organization went in different directions with its focus. The hospital left out some federal data in its final report that Island Health Care highlighted; the hospital also completed their assessment a few months sooner.
Island Health Care’s report came out in April, and the hospital’s version of the assessment was published in November. Both reports relied on local, state, and federal data, plus a survey of more than 1,000 community members.
The common findings included a rising need for primary care physicians, which has already started to be addressed this year by the hospital, Island Health Care, and Martha’s Vineyard Medical, as well as challenges with transportation. One of the biggest takeaways from the hospital’s report was that the Vineyard is home to a relatively physically healthy community, but locals deal with mental health, substance use, and access to care issues at a higher rate than on the mainland.
Locals with severe health diagnoses who are in need of frequent off-Island specialist appointments, along with older Vineyarders, are especially affected by transportation difficulties, as they often need to rely on the ferry. For those facing sudden, middle-of-the-night emergency trips, a MedFlight is the easiest and fastest way to receive some surgical or emergent care off-Island.
Island Health Care’s own “Community Health Needs Assessment” came to many of the same conclusions as the hospital’s report, with additional data about substance use disorders and mental health. Although they initially included a federal number showing the crude suicide rate in Dukes County, administration at the hospital took down the report, republished their assessment online a few days later, and that data had been removed.
When asked by The Times why data about suicide rates was removed in the hospital’s republished assessment, Seguin, said the federal data used a higher population size to gather their information, which could skew the information, making the rates “statistically unstable.”
“Even one or two additional events can significantly change the calculated rate, which limits how reliably those rates can be interpreted. For the same reason, a trend analysis couldn’t be calculated. Given this nuance, we felt it would be potentially misleading to highlight that specific statistic in the final report,” Seguin said.
According to federal data, Dukes County has the highest crude (number of deaths within a population per thousand people) suicide rate in Massachusetts, at 19 per 100,000 people, or about four people a year for a population size of 20,000, like the Vineyard. This is 138 percent higher than the rest of the state, according to the Island Health Care report.
Seguin also acknowledged the removal of the first version of the report, which she stated was “posted as a preliminary draft and was not clearly labeled as such.”
The suicide rate was just one of many statistical findings that were far higher than the rest of the state in the reports. The Island community was found to have only one primary care physician for every 1,740 people, compared to the state average of one provider to 970 people. Tick-borne conditions are soaring on the Vineyard, with emergency visits locally for tick bites at 500 percent higher than any other Massachusetts county.
Dukes County has the lowest overall rate of cancer in the state, but it has the highest incidents of colon and rectum cancer, according to data collected by the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and Island Health Care. Due to high screening percentages, however, many of those diagnoses were not in the late stages. Heart disease, hypertension, and high blood pressure were also noted concerns to health providers on the Vineyard.
While the Island community has long struggled with mental and behavioral health and substance use disorders, diagnoses have skyrocketed in recent years.
Through collected data from 2019 and 2025 at Island Health Care, the report stated that “the number of active patients with a diagnosis of attention deficit and disruptive behavior disorders increased by 636 percent. During that same period, the number of patients with: alcohol-related disorders increased 38 percent; other substance-related disorders increased 108 percent; depression and other mood disorders increased 21 percent; anxiety disorder including PTSD increased 25 percent; and other mental disorders (excluding drug or alcohol dependence) increased 106 percent.”
The public survey, conducted by the health organizations and canvassing efforts in the community, backed that up as well, with people citing a lack of consistent services for mental health. Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents struggle with housing insecurity; 55 percent of locals said they have trouble accessing dental care; 14 percent said accessing mental health services was “very difficult.”
While the “Community Health Needs Assessment” is a framework of data rather than a definitive action plan, it defines the goals and standard of care for those two health organizations on the Vineyard. The Martha’s Vineyard Hospital recently launched the follow-up to its assessment, called the “Community Health Implementation Plan,” which highlighted mental health and substance use services, tick-borne illness prevention and care, and transportation as some top priorities for the next three years.
The goals are similar for Island Health Care, but it added that an acknowledgement of broader issues, like housing, food, insurance, and career maintenance, is at the top of its list.
“If somebody comes with a housing concern, they probably also have a food concern, or they might have concerns about the cost of their medical bills. They might be on MassHealth, and worried about if they’re going to lose their coverage, or how their coverage might change with impending changes, or the changes that have already happened,” Haley Dolan, director of community health at Island Health Care, said. “Having that holistic approach ensures that we can understand the whole needs of an individual, and also the whole needs of a community.”
Editor’s note: Updated to reflect that the IHC is planning to build a new center, and the IHC mobile unit is for same-day primary care.