New England's Primary Care Shortage

A geographic area, facility or population group where residents have impaired access to basic medical care because the setting or area has too few primary care physicians relative to its population size can be designated a health professional shortage area (HPSA) by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).  As of December 31, 2021, more than 86.4 million Americans lived in areas or settings designated by the HRSA as primary care HPSAs.  The six New England states were home to 1.382 million people who lived in a primary care HPSA, accounting for just under 1.6% of Americans who lived in primary care shortage areas.  The HRSA estimates that to eliminate this primary care shortage, New England HPSAs would need 226 more primary care physicians.  As such, New England accounted for about 1.5% of the national shortage of primary care physicians.  A closer study of 12/31/21 HRSA data reveals the following about New England's primary care shortage:

New England's Primary Care Shortage

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortage
CT	43	431,866	61
MA	65	514,225	108
ME	75	108,689	20
NH	30	161,953	18
RI	13	151,748	17
VT	15	13,902	2
Region	241	1,382,383	226
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)