A facility, geographic area, or population group where community members have poor access to mental health care services can be designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as a health professional shortage area (HPSA).  A mental health care shortfall designation indicates that too few mental health care practitioners are serving the community relative to the size of its population.  As of March 31, 2025, nearly 122.4 million Americans lived in mental health care shortfall areas according to the HRSA. That figures includes over 8.8 million residents of the seven-state Great Plains region who were living in mental health care shortfall areas. The HRSA estimates that Great Plains region HPSAs would need 409 additional mental health care practitioners to eliminate the shortfall in the region. A further examination of 3/31/25 HRSA data reveals the following state-level details about the mental health care shortfall in the Great Plains region:

The Mental Health Care Shortfall in the Great Plains Region

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortfall
IA	165	1,504,536	67
KS	110	1,180,423	51
MN	141	2,170,516	93
MO	255	1,969,048	117
NE	88	1,064,487	32
ND	73	284,923	15
SD	58	656,295	34
Region	890	8,830,228	409
U.S.	6,418	122,383,988	6,202

(1) HRSA-designated Geographic Units, Population Groups, and Facilities with a mental health care shortfall

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Mental Health Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, March 31, 2025 (HRSA)