Original data research from the PlainHealthAccess editorial team. Every page is rendered server-side from a live SELECT against the portal database; no numbers are hardcoded.
PlainHealthAccess ranks US states and territories by total Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) designations across all three discipline tracks — primary care, mental health, and dental. Rendered server-side from a live SELECT against the states table.
PlainHealthAccess ranks US states by the total population residing in at least one HRSA-designated health professional shortage area. Rendered live from the states table.
PlainHealthAccess ranks US counties carrying an HRSA Medically Underserved Area (MUA) designation, sorted by total county population. Rendered live from the counties table.
PlainHealthAccess ranks states by the number of primary-care clinicians needed to clear every HRSA shortage designation, then sets that gap against the mental-health gap. Providers needed is the additive, non-overlapping measure of the workforce hole.
Most HRSA shortage designations are facility and population-group types, not whole-area geographic ones. That single fact explains why the share of residents in a geographic shortage area varies so much by state, and why some states honestly show 0%.