Regional Variations in Maternal Mortality and Health Workforce Availability in the United States.

Background: Skilled, high-quality health providers and birth attendants are important for reducing maternal mortality.

Objective: To assess whether U.S.

The geographic alignment of primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas with markers for social determinants of health.

Background: The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), works to ensure accessible, quality, health care for the nation's underserved populations, especially those who are medically, economically, or geographically vulnerable.

Impact of the Health Resources and Services Administration's state oral health workforce grant program on dental workforce density and access to oral health care.

Background: The Health Resources and Services Administration's Grants to States to Support Oral Health Workforce Activities, otherwise known as the State Oral Health Workforce Program (SOHWP), help states develop and implement innovations that address the workforce needs of dental Health Professional Shortage Areas in a manner appropriate to the states' individual needs.

Aim: This cross-sectional study explores the broad impact of the SOHWP by comparing measures of dental workforce density and access to oral health care in states with multiple years of funding versus states with few or no years of funding.

Methods: We used data for 2006-2016 SOHWP awardees together with data from the 2016-2017 Area Health Resources Files and the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to compare numbers of dentists per 100,000 population and age-adjusted prevalence of annual dental visits among adults for long-term SOHWP-funded states versus states with few or no years of funding.

Trends in racial and ethnic demographics of the nursing workforce: 2000 to 2015.

Background: The case for a more diverse nursing workforce has never been stronger given the rapidly changing demographics of the United States (U.S.) and the underrepresentation of certain racial and ethnic groups in nursing.

Perspectives: Using Results from HRSA's Health Workforce Simulation Model to Examine the Geography of Primary Care.

Objective: Inform health planning and policy discussions by describing Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA's) Health Workforce Simulation Model (HWSM) and examining the HWSM's 2025 supply and demand projections for primary care physicians, nurse practitioners (NPs), and physician assistants (PAs).

Data Sources: HRSA's recently published projections for primary care providers derive from an integrated microsimulation model that estimates health workforce supply and demand at national, regional, and state levels.

Principal Findings: Thirty-seven states are projected to have shortages of primary care physicians in 2025, and nine states are projected to have shortages of both primary care physicians and PAs.

Veterans' Location in Health Professional Shortage Areas: Implications for Access to Care and Workforce Supply.

Objective: To describe the distribution of Veterans in areas of the United States where there are potentially inadequate supplies of health professionals, and to explore opportunities suggested by this distribution for fostering health workforce flexibility.

Data Sources: County-level data from the 2015-2016 Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA's) Area Health Resources Files (AHRF) were used to estimate Veteran populations in HRSA-designated health professional shortage areas (HPSAs). This information was then linked to 2015 VA health facility information from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Adequacy of state capacity to address noncommunicable disease clusters in the era of environmental public health tracking.

Objectives: We sought to assess the capacity of state public health agencies to address noncommunicable disease clusters (NCCs) and to develop recommendations to enhance agencies' NCC response capacity.

Methods: We conducted an inventory of state public health agency Web sites and administered a Web-based survey of state health agency personnel to examine NCC capacity with respect to responsibility and authority, scope, protocols, trends in NCC investigations, and desired assistance.

Results: Twenty-six of the state agency Web sites listed an NCC contact, and 12 mentioned a cluster response team.

Arsenic exposure and type 2 diabetes: a systematic review of the experimental and epidemiological evidence.

Chronic arsenic exposure has been suggested to contribute to diabetes development. We performed a systematic review of the experimental and epidemiologic evidence on the association of arsenic and type 2 diabetes. We identified 19 in vitro studies of arsenic and glucose metabolism.