A Closer Look at the U.S. Mental Health Provider Shortage
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Nov 27, 2024
The U.S. health care system is currently ill-equipped to meet the high and growing need for behavioral health services, and states need to take efforts to mitigate related workforce shortages, according to a recent report by Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR).
As of August 2024, more than a third of Americans lived in a federally designated mental health professional shortage area. The inadequate behavioral health workforce — referring to a range of clinicians and paraprofessionals who specialize in delivering or supporting mental health and substance use disorder treatments — disproportionately impacts rural and marginalized communities. Over 45% of rural counties across the nation did not have practicing psychologists in 2021, compared to 16% of urban counties.
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