If residents within a geographic area, facility, or population group have poor access to basic medical care because an insufficient number of primary care physicians serve the area relative to its population, that setting can be designated a primary care HPSA (health professional shortage area) by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).  As of March 31, 2025, more than 77.2 million Americans lived in the HRSA-designated primary care shortfall areas.    That number included about 11.4 million residents of the five-state Great Lakes region who were living in HRSA-designated primary care shortfall areas at that time.  According to HRSA estimates, another 1,847 primary care providers would need to be serving Great Lakes region HPSAs in order to eliminate the primary care shortfall in the region.  A further review of HRSA data details the following about the primary care shortfall in the Great Lakes region:

The Primary Care Shortfall in the Great Lakes Region

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortfall
IL	261	3,081,967	527
IN	153	2,230,213	336
MI	253	2,698,029	490
OH	174	2,011,262	342
WI	165	1,332,145	152
Region	1,006	11,353,616	1,847
U.S.	7,749	77,253,848	13,364

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

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Primary Care practitioners needed to remove the HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, 3/31/25 (HRSA)