HHSH-230200532038C

摘要: The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Bureau of Health Professions has contracted with the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to develop a new method for designating mental health professional shortage areas (MHPSAs) in the United States. HRSA uses professional shortage area designations to target resources to areas with high healthcare needs. For mental health, shortage designations are used to target National Health Service Corps placements, J-1 visa placements for foreign-trained physicians, and the 10% Medicare incentive for psychiatrists. The two-year contract for this project does not provide resources to conduct primary data collection; we were directed to use the best available data on mental health needs and workforce availability in developing a new method to identify under-served areas. Furthermore, the new method is limited to adults (ages 18 and over) and to six professional groups identified by HRSA, and excludes substance use disorders.This report describes the current method used for designating MHPSAs and presents a rationale for developing a new method along with the challenges particular to mental health services that are faced in making such designations. The report profiles national county-level need for mental health services, provides counts of the mental health professional workforce, locates workforce shortages, and assesses the impact of the new method, both in terms of the overall distribution of shortage designations across the country and in terms of county-level designation changes. Recommendations for future …