State Plates
The South Dakota Health Plate
In South Dakota, health plates turn on coverage and prevalence — who is insured, and what conditions a population carries. This plate places Black South Dakota in the national health geography: the benchmarks below are the published national figures for Black Americans, and South Dakota's distribution figures — 32,000 Black residents, 2 percent of the state — give the scale of the community those national patterns describe within the state's borders.
The National Pattern
In South Dakota, that national coverage pattern runs through the state's own insurance market and care system, and the table below fixes the population it describes. About one in ten Black Americans — roughly 9 to 10 percent in the Census Bureau's annual coverage report — has no health insurance at all, a rate above the national figure and above the White rate. Here, on the plate for South Dakota, held against the national pattern, the state's own rows say how its coverage stands.
The coverage figures take their local form in South Dakota, where the state rows below set the population behind the national pattern. Rates in this article are for the full population unless stated; nonelderly rates run higher than the all-ages figures because Medicare covers nearly everyone past 65 — one reason the Black uninsured problem is concentrated among working-age adults, as the age breakdown below shows. The benchmark's work is location, not rank: it fixes where South Dakota stands so the plate can be read.
In South Dakota, that national coverage pattern runs through the state's own insurance market and care system, and the table below fixes the population it describes. Employer-sponsored insurance is the largest single source, covering about half of Black Americans, through their own jobs or a family member's — a share below the White figure, reflecting the employment and occupational data of this reference: fewer Black workers in the large-firm, high-benefit sectors, more in service, temporary, and small-employer jobs where offers of coverage are thinner. Held against the national midpoint, South Dakota's own rows say how its households stand.
Reading This Plate
How to read this plate: the state rows are the published census figures for South Dakota; the benchmark rows are the published national health record, labeled as benchmarks. In South Dakota, health measures are survey-based, so the plate carries the survey sources on its face and treats the national pattern as the frame inside which state health agencies publish their own state-level readings.
The Population Behind the Plate
In South Dakota, that national coverage pattern runs through the state's own insurance market and care system, and the table below fixes the population it describes. South Dakota holds about 32,000 Black residents — Black alone or in combination — roughly one in twenty-eight of its people, with Black alone at about 18,000, or 2 percent. Read for South Dakota, held against the national pattern, the state's own rows say how its coverage stands.
For South Dakota, the national health figures are the frame; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is the picture inside it. Here, on the plate for South Dakota, black South Dakota's early record follows the Dakota pattern: Black regulars at Fort Randall, Fort Sisseton, and the Missouri River posts; the Black Hills gold rush drawing Black prospectors, cooks, and entrepreneurs to Deadwood and Lead (the Hills' Black population in the rush decades was small but documented, including business owners on Deadwood's main street); the railroad towns of the Milwaukee and Northwestern lines; and the small congregations of Yankton, Mitchell, and Sioux Falls. For South Dakota, the comparison the plate invites is therefore two-sided: the national firm counts on one side, the state's enterprise on the other.
In South Dakota, coverage is the gateway measure: it decides whether the rest of the health system is reachable at ordinary cost. The national Black coverage record, carried here as the benchmark, is the product of federal and state policy layered over the population this atlas counts — and in South Dakota that population numbers 32,000. In South Dakota, prevalence measures, from hypertension to diabetes, sit downstream of coverage, which is why this plate leads with the insurance record.
For The South Dakota Health Plate, the method is the atlas's own: named sources, published figures, and a table that carries what the map cannot. A note on this plate's figures, stated once and plainly: Black share of the state population (alone): 2%; Black share, alone or in combination: 3.6%; Black residents, alone or in combination: 32,000. In South Dakota, the figures are the argument; the text only keeps them in order.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Black share of the state population (alone) | 2% |
| Black share, alone or in combination | 3.6% |
| Black residents, alone or in combination | 32,000 |
| United States benchmark — Black Americans without health insurance coverage, approximately | 1 in 10 |
| United States benchmark — Black Americans covered by Medicaid, approximately — and about one in three Black children | 1 in 5 |
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; U.S. Census Bureau, Health Insurance Coverage in the United States (Current Population Survey). Method: Figures are drawn from the published federal sources named on this page, for the geography named; tile shading bands the published Black population share into the five legend classes. Counts are rounded as published by the source agency, and national benchmark rows are labeled with the basis they are published on.