The Great Lakes Region's Primary Care Shortage

As designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a primary care health professional shortage area (HPSA) is a geographic area, population group, or facility that has poor access to primary care services because it lacks a sufficient number of primary care providers, including Doctors of Medicine (MD) or Doctors of Osteopathy (DO) who provide services as general or family practitioners, general internal medicine physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians and gynecologists.  As of December 31, 2021, primary care HPSAs in the five-state Great Lakes region accounted for just over 13.4% of the U.S. population who lived in primary care shortage areas, and about 11% of the nation's overall shortage of primary care providers.  To eliminate the shortage, the HRSA estimated that Great Lakes region HPSAs would need 1,680 additional primary care providers.  A further study of HRSA data reveals the following about the Great Lakes region's primary care shortage:

The Great Lakes Region's Primary Care Shortage

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortage
IL	269	3,489,109	567
IN	117	2,119,334	194
MI	276	2,985,151	489
OH	167	1,918,631	298
WI	118	1,136,187	132
Region	947	11,648,412	1,680
U.S.	7,613	86,473,101	15,184

(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a primary care shortage

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Primary Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, 12/31/21 (HRSA)