{"id":2963059,"date":"2026-04-27T08:11:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=2963059"},"modified":"2026-04-27T08:11:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:11:47","slug":"hpsas","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/health\/hpsas","title":{"rendered":"Use Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in your policy mapping work"},"author":7121,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[28211],"tags":[781074,763372,34811,34821,781075],"industry":[],"product":[36581],"class_list":["post-2963059","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-dental-health","tag-mental-health","tag-policy-mapping","tag-policy-maps","tag-primary-care","product-arcgis-living-atlas"],"acf":{"authors":[{"ID":7121,"user_firstname":"Diana","user_lastname":"Lavery","nickname":"Diana Lavery","user_nicename":"dianaclavery_global","display_name":"Diana Lavery","user_email":"DLavery@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2018-03-02 00:19:20","user_description":"(she\/her\/hers) Diana loves working with data. She has over 15 years experience as a practitioner of demography, sociology, economics, policy analysis, and GIS. Diana holds a BA in quantitative economics and an MA in applied demography. She is a senior GIS engineer on ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World's Policy Maps team. Diana enjoys strong coffee and clean datasets, usually simultaneously.","user_avatar":""}],"short_description":"Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) are available and included in ArcGIS Living Atlas, opening up many policy mapping options.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2963062,"id":2963062,"title":"HPSA_layer_cards","filename":"HPSA_layer_cards.png","filesize":216382,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/health\/hpsas\/hpsa_layer_cards","alt":"Three layer cards presented as a list. Health Professional Shortage Areas in Mental Health Component Boundaries, Health Professional Shortage Areas in Primary Care Designation Boundaries, and Health Professional Shortage Areas in Dental Health Component Boundaries.","author":"7121","description":"","caption":"","name":"hpsa_layer_cards","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2963059,"date":"2026-04-17 20:22:42","modified":"2026-04-21 23:11:03","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1083,"height":484,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","medium-width":464,"medium-height":207,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":343,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","large-width":1083,"large-height":484,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","1536x1536-width":1083,"1536x1536-height":484,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","2048x2048-width":1083,"2048x2048-height":484,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards-826x369.png","card_image-width":826,"card_image-height":369,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png","wide_image-width":1083,"wide_image-height":484}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HPSA_layer_cards.png"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

A Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) is a geographic area, population group, or health care facility that has been designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA<\/a>) as having a shortage of health professionals. There are three categories of HPSAs: Primary Care, Dental Health, and Mental Health.<\/p>\n

Over 92 million Americans live in a Primary Care HPSA<\/a>, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Having a regular primary care provider is associated with many benefits, above all is lower mortality.<\/p>\n

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) created shortage designations<\/a> over 50 years ago, and the designations are reviewed and updated periodically. Many federal programs use these HPSA designations to distribute resources. For example, loan repayment programs, Medicare bonus payment programs, visa waiver programs, and Nurse Corps have incentives in place to retain and attract providers to serve these areas.<\/p>\n

Use-case: Rural Health Transformation Initiatives<\/h2>\n

One recent program is the Rural Health Transformation Program<\/a>. The financial stability of the few hospitals and clinics in these communities is top of mind for many. By leveraging HPSA layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas, states can expand upon their Rural Health Transformation Initiatives, which include providing care as well as investments in technology, training, and more. HPSAs are an indicator of how investments are targeted, prioritized, and justified. For states’ initiatives and implementations, HPSAs serve as a foundational planning layer, highlighting rural geographies with documented workforce shortages and informing data\u2011driven decisions around access, recruitment, and care delivery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Use-case: State-level planning<\/h2>\n

The United States has an aging population, which comes with growing healthcare needs and challenges. Additionally, the workforce providing healthcare is also aging. Many states’ Health and Human Services departments do projections to see how drastic the gap will be between the demand for healthcare services relative to the supply. This helps to inform where to target preventative public health interventions to try to decrease demand, as well as workforce interventions to stimulate supply. For example, a recent report<\/a> from Texas Department of State Health Services projects their dental workforce out to 2030. The report shows which regions have will an ongoing<\/em> shortage vs. a worsening<\/em> shortage.<\/p>\n

Use-case: Program and policy evaluation research<\/h2>\n

Additionally, many state health departments and academic researchers use HPSAs to study<\/a> public health outcomes, workforce effects, and even to evaluate the incentive programs that HPSA designations provide. For example, this study<\/a> examined differences in healthcare utilization and spending between populations in HPSAs and demographically-matched populations in non-HPSAs.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

ArcGIS Living Atlas value-adds<\/h1>\n

These widely-used boundaries are now available at your fingertips within both ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro. Just search “HPSA” or “Health Provider Shortage Area” in Living Atlas. You can access the three categories – Primary Care, Dental Health, and Mental Health – as three different feature layers.<\/a><\/p>\n

The HPSA layers in Living Atlas are a high-quality starting place, saving data processing time for GIS analysts and health analysts all over the country. The benefits you have come to expect from Living Atlas show up in these items:<\/p>\n