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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Health workforce supply and demand

Status Report of the Alabama Primary Care Physician Workforce, 2023
Discusses distribution of Alabama's primary care physicians (PHPs) and their availability to state residents. Features county-level maps showing 78 Alabama cities and towns and the practice locations of PCPs, Alabama towns and cities with shortages of PCPs and those with an adequate number or a surplus of PCPs as of 2023, and statistics on physician need in Alabama population centers as of 2024, with breakdowns by urban or rural location.
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: Alabama Office of Healthcare Workforce
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Distribution of Georgia's Actively Licensed Nursing Workforce (2023)
One-page report on Georgia's nursing workforce. Provides data on nursing license distribution by age, license type, rural or urban area, and more.
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce
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West Virginia State Office of Rural Health: Annual Report 2023
Offers information about activities of the West Virginia State Office of Rural Health during fiscal year 2022-2023. Features statistics on federal and state funding allocations in 2023 and J-1 visa applications from 2018-2023, and includes county-level maps showing health professional placements and J-1 placements, with breakdowns by rural and nonrural counties.
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources
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2023 Nebraska Nursing Workforce Shortage
Provides information on the nursing workforce shortage in Nebraska, broken down by region and county. Includes data on nursing education and on nursing shortages in Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), rural hospitals, urban hospitals, and long-term care facilities.
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: Nebraska Hospital Association
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Addressing the Rising Mental Health Needs of an Aging Population: Proceedings of a Workshop
Summary of a May 2023 workshop discussing mental health care for older adults, including challenges and strategies for meeting mental health needs. Discusses disparities, social determinants of health, access, workforce, interventions and support, rural challenges, and more.
Additional links: Read Online
Author(s): Board on Health Care Services
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: Health and Medicine Division (HMD), National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
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Treating Rural America: The Last Doctor in Town
3 part documentary discussing challenges with accessing healthcare in rural communities. Part 1, "The Last Doctor in Town," highlights shortages of physicians in rural areas. Part 2, "The New Country Doctors," discusses rural residencies and the role of a rural physician. Part 3, "The Telehealth Solution," discusses the role of telehealth as a possible solution for barriers to care. Captions are available in the video player.
Additional links: The New Country Doctors, The Telehealth Solution
Author(s): Hyacinth Empinado
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: STAT
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Provision of Evaluation and Management Visits by Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants in the USA from 2013 to 2019: Cross-sectional Time Series Study
Evaluated healthcare visits of Medicare patients between 2013 and 2019 to determine trends in proportion of visits by a nurse practitioner or physician assistant versus a physician. Includes analyses of clinical setting, diagnosis, and various patient characteristics including rurality. Discusses workforce shortage impacts on the findings.
Author(s): Sadiq Y. Patel, David Auerbach, Haiden A. Huskamp, et al.
Citation: BMJ, 382, e073933
Date: 2023
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Disparities in Spatial Accessibility of Primary Care in Louisiana: From Physical to Virtual Accessibility
Evaluates both physical and virtual accessibility to primary care physicians (PCPs) across Louisiana. Analyzes disparities in access between rural and urban areas, the Black population and the general population, and for Area Deprivation Index (ADI) areas.
Author(s): Fahui Wang, Yutian Zeng, Lingbo Liu, Tracy Onega
Citation: Frontiers in Public Health, 11, 1154574
Date: 2023
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The Future Pediatric Subspecialty Physician Workforce: Meeting the Needs of Infants, Children, and Adolescents
Reports on barriers to increasing the pediatric subspecialist workforce and discusses the impact on research to improve health outcomes for children. Discusses access to care, education of the workforce, reimbursement rates, and more. Highlights rural specific challenges throughout.
Additional links: Read Online
Author(s): Board on Children, Youth, and Families
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organization: Health and Medicine Division (HMD), National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
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Healthcare Provider Networks Inadequate to Serve All: Causes and Solutions in Pennsylvania
Discusses what happens when health plan networks are inadequate to serve their members, why this happens, and what the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can do to address the problem. Includes a section on provider shortages in rural areas of Pennsylvania, a county-level map showing prevalence of disability in Pennsylvania, and statistics on travel time to appointments and wait times to get an appointment.
Date: 2023
Sponsoring organizations: Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council, Pennsylvania Health Access Network
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