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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A racially and ethnically diverse physician workforce is widely seen as a key component in the effort to address health disparities related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Program directors, faculty, and medical students all share the perception that a diverse student body...
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Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics are a critical component of any community’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system. Assuring the continued viability of the prehospital EMS workforce is a key concern for many local, State, Federal, and tribal EMS agencies, as well as national...
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The move toward “cultural competence” that responds to the diversity of California’s population is reflected in efforts of California hospitals to provide linguistically appropriate care for their patients who have limited English proficiency. Legal mandates underscore this need. Health care...
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In recent years, attention has focused on the nursing profession due to a crippling shortage of registered nurses (RNs) that has been reported throughout California, the United States, and in many other countries. California’s nursing shortage is among the most severe in the United States and many...
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Increasing racial and ethnic diversity in California’s physician workforce is a key component in the ongoing effort to address health disparities associated with race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. New physician workforce data show that despite decades of efforts to achieve this goal, little...
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In 1998, California officially recognized a new dental health profession: the Registered Dental Hygienist in Alternative Practice (RDHAP). RDHAPs may practice unsupervised in homes, schools, residential facilities and other institutions, and in Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas. Recent...
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California’s population is among the most racially and ethnically diverse in the U.S. However, policy makers, educators, foundations, and other stakeholders are concerned about how well this diverse population is represented among healthcare practitioners in key health professions and occupations....
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A recent poll by the Field Research Corporation showed that six in ten voters agree that it is important for California to have enough health professionals who reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the patients they serve. This report examines data from the California Medical Board Relicensure...
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While a number of studies have explored questions regarding career path and job satisfaction among nurses, the data rarely are examined for distinct racial and ethnic groups. Furthermore, we have not found any study that has explored the relationship between ethnicity and factors that foster job...
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Commuting of registered nurses (RNs) has important implications for nursing shortages. A county or region might have a large number of resident RNs, but if many of those RNs work in a different county or region, employers in the region of residence might perceive a shortage. California’s counties...
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As California faces workforce shortages and geographic mal-distribution in many of the health care professions, policy makers are looking to expanding educational programs, rethinking practice models and improving recruitment and retention efforts among existing and new pools of workers. One...
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In 1999, California passed the first legislation in the United States to establish minimum staffing levels for licensed nurses in hospitals. Implementation of the regulation began in 2004. This article examines whether nurses who work in hospitals in California have perceived improvements in their...
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Allied health workers are a critical component of health care delivery. Studies suggest that a diverse workforce is more likely to provide culturally sensitive health care and ultimately reduce health disparities in the population. In recent years there has been increased attention on training the...
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A recent poll by the Field Research Corporation showed that six in ten voters agree that it is important for California to have enough health professionals who reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the patients they serve. This report examines new data from the California Medical Board...
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OBJECTIVES: To develop, implement, and evaluate the impact of a cultural competence train-the-trainer workshop for pharmacy educators. METHODS: A 2-day train-the-trainer workshop entitled Incorporating Cultural Competency in Pharmacy Education (1.65 CEUs) was provided to pharmacy faculty from...
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Legal scopes of practice for the health professions exist in statutes enacted by the state legislature and in regulations developed and implemented by administrative agencies, such as health professions boards. The purpose of this brief is to examine scope of practice issues within the context of...
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Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are registered nurses who are prepared beyond initial nursing education in an NP program to provide primary care directly to patients. NP educational requirements, certification mechanisms and legal scopes of practice are decided at the state level and vary considerably....
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Physician supply in the U.S. is again on the national health policy agenda. A central issue in this debate is the availability of physicians willing to work in underserved and disadvantaged communities-an issue closely linked to the number of minority and international medical graduate (IMG)...
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The survey collects data about nursing programs and their students and faculty from August 1 through July 31. Annual data presented in this report represent August 1, 2005 through July 31, 2006. Demographic information and census data were requested for October 15, 2006. Data from pre- and post-...
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Forecasting the supply and demand of the nursing workforce is crucial to understanding the short and long term needs for nurses in California and for identifying strategies for addressing future shortages. This presentation discusses several forecasting methods and presents data for the 2007...