Context

Health workforce shortage areas are geographic areas, populations, and facilities that have a shortage of outpatient primary care, dental, and mental health providers and services. These areas are designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a federal agency in the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

There are several types of shortage designations including: - Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) - Medically Underserved Areas and Populations (MUAPs) - Exceptional Medically Underserved Population (Exceptional MUPs) - Governor's-Designated Secretary-Certified Shortage Areas for Rural Health Clinics

HRSA's Bureau of Health Workforce operates a cooperative agreement and evaluates applications submitted by the Primary Care Office (PCO) of each U.S. state and territory as part of the process to designate some types of shortage areas. These applications are reviewed by HRSA to determine if they meet specific designation criteria which differs by the type of shortage area. Other shortage area types are automatically designated by federal statute or at the request of a state governor. Once HPSAs are designated, score is calculated which represents a relative measure of need for health care services for that discipline. Both HPSAs and MUAPs can be designated to indicate a shortage of primary care services while only HPSAs can be designated to indicate a shortage of dental or mental health services. Shortage area designations and scores are used by various federal programs for distributing resources. Some shortage area designations may also be used by state programs.

See the shortage designation website for more information.

Content

The health workforce shortage area data in the included files represent the HPSA and MUAP (including Exceptional MUP) designation information at a single point in time. The dataset is refreshed weekly from the source data files on data.hrsa.gov.

HPSAs All three file contain the same columns but represent only a single healthcare discipline. Each record represents either a "component" (county, county subdivision or census tract) of a Geographic/Population HPSA service area or represents the physical location of facility HPSA.

Files: - BCD_HPSA_FCT_DET_PC.csv: Primary Care HPSAs - BCD_HPSA_FCT_DET_DH.csv: Dental Health HPSAs - BCD_HPSA_FCT_DET_MH.csv: Mental Health HPSAs

Fields of interest: - [HPSA ID]: Unique identifier for each HPSA designation - [Designation Type]: Type of HPSA Designation. Types for areas designated for a geographic area include "Geographic HPSA", "High Needs Geographic HPSA" and "HPSA Population" - [HPSA Discipline Class]

MUAPs Each record in this file represents a "component" (county, county subdivision or census tract) of a Medically Underserved Area or Medically Underserved Population Group service area

Files: - MUA/_DET.csv: Medically Underserved Areas/Populations

Fields of interest:

Acknowledgements

Inspiration

The Find Shortage Areas: Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) and Medically Underserved Area/Population (MUA/P) by Address tool helps you determine if a specific address is located in a designated shortage area. Shortage areas are designated by HRSA as specific geographic areas or sites that have the greatest need for health care. Shortage areas are categorized by specific needs (Primary Care HPSA, Mental Health HPSA, Dental Care HPSA, or MUA/P).

This indicator provides information about medically underserved areas and/or populations (MUA/Ps), as determined by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Each designated area includes multiple census tracts.State Primary Care Offices submit applications to HRSA to designate specific areas within counties as MUA/Ps. The MUA/P designation is made using the Index of Medical Underservice (IMU) score, which includes four components: provider per 1,000 population, percent of population under poverty, percent of population ages 65 years and older, and infant mortality rate. The IMU scores ranges from 0-100. Lower scores indicate higher needs. An IMU score of 62 or below qualifies for designation as an MUA/P. Note: if an area is not designated as an MUA/P, it does not mean it is not underserved, only that an application has not been filed for the area and that official designation has not been given.The MUAs within Los Angeles County consist of groups of urban census tracts (namely service areas). MUPs have a shortage of primary care health services for a specific population within a geographic area. These populations may face economic, cultural, or language barriers to health care, such as: people experiencing homelessness, people who are low-income, people who are eligible for Medicaid, Native Americans, or migrant farm workers. All the MUPs that have been designated within Los Angeles County are among low-income populations of selected census tract groups. Due to the nature of the designation process, a census tract may be designated as both an MUA and an MUP and as multiple MUAs. MUA/P designations help establish health maintenance organizations or community health centers in high-need areas.For more information about the Community Health Profiles Data Initiative, please see the initiative homepage.

This dataset contains the geographic Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) federal designations for Primary Care, Mental Health, and Dental Health. This California-specific data is a subset and snapshot of the complete national data maintained by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). For the full set of variables and most up-to-date information, visit https://data.hrsa.gov/data/download.