WEDNESDAY, July 8, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Three in 10 young adults do not have a primary care doctor, according to the results of a survey released June 29 by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
The national poll was conducted from May 1 to 3, 2026, and included responses from 1,006 adults.
The results showed that 71 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 years have a primary care doctor versus 97 percent of adults aged 65 years and older. Among younger adults who do have a doctor, less than half (47 percent) had a checkup in the past year. More than one-third of the young adults surveyed (36 percent) reported that they seek out an urgent care clinic for nonemergency health issues, while 68 percent of older adults said they contact their primary care provider.
"My young, healthy patients might be the picture of health but they might not know they're behind on their tetanus shot because it's been 10 years," Zachary Bittinger, M.D., a family medicine physician at Ohio State, said in a statement. "They might not know that it's time for their first Pap test. There are lots of things that crop up that we see coming in primary care from a long way away."
