Health Education Centers

Abstract

The uneven distribution of physicians and other health personnel in the United States is a familiar problem and a matter of grave concern to all those interested in overcoming shortages of health manpower. In 1965, the number of active non-federal physicians per 100,000 population ranged from 89 in the East South Central states to 171 in the Middle Atlantic states. 1 If we consider data for individual states (excluding the District of Columbia), we find that the differences tend to be even more pronounced, ranging from 69 in Alaska and Mississippi to 199 in New York in 1967. 2 Similar differences are found for other health manpower categories, such as dentists and nurses. In general, states with low ratios of health manpower to population tend to be characterized by low per capita income or sparse population or both. Multivariate analyses of factors associated with differences in physician-population ratios, summarized by