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.
- Suspected opioid overdose deaths are surging during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing by more than 40% in May and continuing to rise. The short-term emergency authorizations for audio-only buprenorphine treatment during COVID-19 have helped us reach people previously unable to access treatment, and...
- Patient safety is a global concern, yet little is known about how and whether perceptions of patient safety culture (PSC) vary by nurses' countries of origin and preparation. This is particularly important in American nursing homes (NHs), which are increasingly hiring non-US born and prepared...
- The dental workforce is increasingly gender diverse. This study analyzed gender differences in dental practice using the American Dental Association’s 2010-2016 Masterfile and the 2017 Survey of Dental Practice. Between 2010 and 2016, the proportion of women working in dentistry increased from 24.5...
- This study examines whether a portable, school‐based, preventive oral health program was associated with reduced use of treatment services over time. They obtained encounter data from Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC) in Connecticut that operates such a program. They followed cohorts of children...
- This report presents an overview of California’s veterinarian workforce. The majority of veterinarians care for companion animals (i.e., pets). Others work in settings such as agriculture, research, and public health. As a health sciences discipline with expertise across multiple species and...
- Registered nurses (RNs) are the largest group of health care professionals in the United States. They work in a wide range of health care settings and provide a variety of services including acute care, primary care and preventive services. Prospective RNs can complete one of four types of...
- This report presents an overview of current and future supply and demand for California’s public health workforce. Public health professionals perform a wide range of services aimed at creating the conditions in which people can be healthy. Some public health professionals provide services to...
- This report presents an overview of California’s allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO) physicians. Allopathic medical schools grant the Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree, while osteopathic medical schools grant the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree. Graduates earning an MD typically complete...
- Pharmacists are healthcare professionals who work with patients, physicians and other healthcare providers to ensure that patients receive the safest, most effective and least costly medications. They communicate knowledge about drugs, dispense drugs and manage patients whose chronic conditions...
- Dentists are healthcare professionals who diagnose and treat problems related to oral health. Common tasks include repairing or removing damaged teeth, filling cavities, performing root canals, placing sealants or whitening agents on teeth and making models and measurements for dental appliances (e...
- Optometrists are health care professionals who have earned a Doctor of Optometry (OD) degree. Common tasks performed by optometrists include conducting eye examinations, diagnosing vision problems (such as nearsightedness or farsightedness), addressing binocular vision issues, diagnosing and...
- A large body of research has documented a relationship between higher nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and better patient outcomes. To date, most studies have not identified an ‘optimal’ nurse staffing ratio, which creates a challenge for determining appropriate staffing levels. If increasing nurse...
- Childhood malnutrition has been a longstanding crisis in Mumbai, India. Despite national IYCF (Infant Young Child Feeding) guidelines to promote best practices for infant/toddler feeding, nearly one-third of children under age five are stunted or underweight. To improve child nutrition,...
- The nurse practitioner (NP) role has evolved substantially from its origins in primary care, with NPs increasingly being employed in the medical and surgical specialties. Between 2008 and 2016, there was an increase in nurse practitioners in specialty care. This study explores some differences in...
- In the US, nursing home residents and staff have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study compares nursing homes in California with and without COVID-19 positive residents. They found that nursing homes with less than the recommended RN staffing levels, those with lower Medicare...
- Revenue-generating health care activities, generally accepted as a measure of productivity, do not account for the full range of health care activities that enhance patient care. We analyzed the quantity, duration, and type of "service value activities" performed by nurse practitioners (NPs),...
- Nonadherence to medications is costly and improving adherence is difficult, requiring multifactorial solutions, including policy solutions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of one policy strategy on medication adherence. Specifically, we examined the effect on adherence of...
- Over 1.5 million new jobs need to be filled by 2026 for medical assistants, nursing aides, and home care aides, many of which will work in the long-term services and supports (LTSS) sector. Using 16 years of data from the American Time Use Survey, we examined the financial vulnerability of high-...
- The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed issues relating to Scope of Practice (SOP) regulations and restrictions on Nurse Practitioner (NP) practice to the forefront. Many Governors issued Executive Orders allowing waivers to current SOP restrictions in order to maximize the workforce response to the COVID...
- The increase in nurse practitioners (NPs) in ambulatory medical and surgical specialty settings has prompted inquiry into their role and contribution to patient care. We explored the role and contribution of NPs in ambulatory specialty care through their activities outside of direct care and...
- The purpose of this study was to determine associations between missed nursing care and nurse staffing during labor and birth, and exclusive breast milk feeding at hospital discharge. Labor and birth nurses in three states were surveyed about missed nursing care and their maternity units' adherence...
- This report presents supply and demand forecasts for the Registered Nurse (RN) workforce in California from 2019 through 2035. These new forecasts are based on data from the 2018 California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) Survey of Registered Nurses, the 2017-2018 BRN Annual Schools Report, data...
- The dental team is becoming increasingly interprofessional, working collaboratively with medical, social, and mental health professionals. This chapter defines the types of personnel involved in the provision of oral healthcare services, explores the evolution of individuals engaged in oral...
- Three of every four pharmaceutical overdose deaths in 2010 involved opioids, according to the CDC. This sobering statistic focused attention on the rapid acceleration and devastating impact of the epidemic of opioid use disorder in the United States. Throughout the country, individuals and families...
- The 2018 Survey of Registered Nurses provides information about the demographics, education, employment, and satisfaction of nurses with California RN licenses.
- This report summarizes the findings from a survey of general acute care hospital employers of registered nurses (RNs) in California conducted in fall 2018 and winter 2019. This is the ninth annual survey of hospital RN employers; these surveys provide an opportunity to evaluate overall demand for...
- Current efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic aim to slow viral spread and increase testing, protect health care workers from infection, and obtain ventilators and other equipment to prepare for a surge of critically ill patients. But additional actions are needed to rapidly increase health...
- The California Improvement Network’s (CIN) latest report, CIN Connections: Foundations for Health, features tips for resilient leadership and building partnerships between health providers and community-based organizations from Access Community Health Network’s chief operating officer, Donna...
- Recent analyses have raised concerns about whether the United States has enough hospital capacity for a surge of patients needing care for COVID-19 infections. But even if we can double or triple the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, we don’t have enough nurses to staff them. How can we...
- Violence against healthcare workers is a pervasive safety issue that impacts patient care and workforce stability. Workplace violence in healthcare settings is known to be a costly and often underreported problem. In California, hospitals are required to report incidents of violence towards workers...