At Healthforce Center, our research on the health care workforce offers timely analysis and guidance for providers, policymakers and funders in addressing critical delivery and improvement challenges. We have a team of nationally recognized research experts who work to define issues and support health policy change with rigorous analysis, high-quality data and actionable recommendations.
Our expertise covers the entire health workforce — the full range of licensed professions, credentialed occupations, and emerging roles such as community health workers and peer providers, and across all types of settings from acute to long-term care. We specialize in examining evolving trends in care models, care team composition, and promising new models for the delivery of high-quality health care.
Committed to Improving Health Equity
Our commitment to improving health equity and ensuring a diverse health workforce translates into research that emphasizes expanding cultural competence and language concordance, promoting workforce diversity through education and development programs, and evaluating care models that ensure health equity.
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The integration of allopathic and non-allopathic health care systems, disciplines and modalities is fast becoming a part of the mainstream health care delivery system in the United States. This report provides information about naturopathic physicians, naturopaths and others employing naturopathic...
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OBJECTIVES: This study estimates the supply and geographic distribution of dentists in California and examines the community characteristics associated with supply of dentists. METHODS: The number of practicing dentists was estimated from American Dental Association data on licensed dentists in...
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The racial and ethnic composition of the registered nurse (RN) workforce in California is not at parity with the composition of the population. We find that the underrepresentation of African Americans in nursing in California appears to be due to lower overall educational attainment among African...
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In 1999, California passed the first legislation in the United States to establish minimum staffing levels in hospitals for registered nurses (RNs) and licensed vocational nurses. The author provides estimates of the increase in RN expenditures required by this mandate, by hospital size and for...
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Today, for a host of internal and external factors, many of the health professions appear to be losing their appeal to potential workers. Nursing, nationwide and in California, has become a pressing example. The state faces severe nursing shortages, particularly in some geographic areas and within...
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Widely distributed to policymakers in California and nationally, this report offered a comprehensive profile of the California physician workforce in the year 2000. Using existing and original data, this study provided information about the aggregate supply of physicians, specialty and geographic...
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For a host of complex and interrelated reasons California may not have adequate numbers of nurses with appropriate skills over the coming decades. This problem is just rising to the attention of the profession, nursing educators, and managers in the health system. Increasingly, it will affect the...
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California and the nation now face an oral disease situation that is of a crisis nature. The situation has developed over several decades and involves a complex set of problems, institutions, attitudes and financing arrangements. For millions across California, access to oral health care services...
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As California implements its minimum staffing legislation, it becomes increasingly important that researchers continue to examine the relationship between RN staffing and quality of care. Research does not support the general assumption that more RN staffing is always better; policymakers and...
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In California, approximately 4.5 million Medicaid beneficiaries are eligible for dental services, yet fewer than half (44%) utilize these services on an annual basis. While several factors may contribute to this low use of dental services, a major deterrent is finding a dentist who will accept...
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In a March 1998 Journal of Nursing Administration article, I reported that nurse staffing did not, in fact, decline through 1996 in California, where concerns about nurse staffing have been prominent. In this article, I provide a data update indicating an increase in the number of hours worked by...
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CONTEXT: Many rural and inner-city communities in the United States have persistent shortages of health professionals. In addition, health services are increasingly delivered in community-based settings by interdisciplinary teams. Yet, health professions students in the US continue to receive most...
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Nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs) and certified nurse midwives (CNMs) play growing roles in the health care workforce. Experts recommended in the mid-1990s that their numbers be increased to address concerns about an inadequate supply and mal-distribution of primary care...
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Access to dental services in California is an issue of increasing concern to federal and state policy makers, as demonstrated by both new legislation addressing access to dental care and increased funding for existing programs. Recent research has shown that many Californians do not receive regular...
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OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of managed care and the prospective payment system on the hospital employment of registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and aides. DATA SOURCES: Hospital-level data from California's Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD)...
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BACKGROUND: Little is known about long-term improvements in medical students' knowledge, attitudes, and use of blood and body fluid precautions following preclinical training. METHODS: We evaluated an educational and skills-training program emphasizing double gloving for high-risk surgical...
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Allied and auxiliary health care workers play critical support roles in the health care system. Any significant reform in the way health care is delivered will require changes in their training and utilization. This comprehensive report by The California Twenty-First Century Workforce Project...
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This report provides a descriptive overview of local public health departments in California. Data are provided on the size and scope of agencies, characteristics of the population served, managed care interactions, partnerships in the community and the pressing issues for these agencies. This...
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The decision of the Regents of the University of California (UC) to end selective admissions for racial/ethnic minorities in 1995 and the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996 have generated great concern about the enrollment of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in UC medical schools. This report...
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Over the past 2 years, concerns have arisen about the adequacy of the supply of RNs in California and the rest of the United States. Nurse leaders have called upon the California State Legislature to respond to concerns by increasing funding for RN education at public colleges and universities. The...