Shortage of Health Professionals in Rural Areas

描述（由申请人提供）：在农村地区提供科学状态的一个持续挑战，经验测试的心理健康干预措施是心理健康和一般卫生保健专业人员的短缺。许多农村地区缺乏专业精神卫生专业人员，加上目前注册护士短缺，预计情况将恶化。更令人生畏的是，缺乏在提供文化相关护理方面受过充分培训的提供者，以及不同少数民族和族裔人口的心理健康提供者人数很少。这些专业人员的短缺可能导致缺乏护理、提供不合标准的护理、消费者结果不佳、缺乏文化上可接受的护理，并最终对社区的健康产生负面影响。利用现有的数据，我们将评估具有不同数量和专业人员的组合对公共卫生和利用类型的结果的影响。我们将： 1)确定社区特征，包括种族，贫困和农村对不同类型的精神卫生专业人员的可用性的影响; 2）评估目前和拟议的专业人员数量之间的关系，对文化相关的精神卫生保健的需求和精神卫生保健的结果;和3）提出更好的方法来确定精神卫生专业人员（如HPSA）的短缺。这项研究的成果将包括一张载有国家、州和县精神卫生工作人员信息的CD。这些数据将可供决策者用于规划和其他研究。该研究将提供改进的数据和改进的方法，以创建和评估心理健康短缺地区的不同定义。根据卫生资源和服务管理局的统计，超过34个联邦方案依赖短缺名称来确定资格或作为供资参考（HRSA，2002年）。本研究将提高这些重要指定的准确性，这些指定影响参与联邦计划的资格、国家卫生服务团的贷款偿还以及对照顾居住在这些指定地区的Medicare客户的提供者的财务激励。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An ongoing challenge to the provision of state of the science, empirically tested mental health interventions in rural areas is a shortage of mental health and general health care professionals. The lack of specialty mental health professionals in many rural areas is compounded by the current registered nurse shortage, which is predicted to worsen. More daunting is the lack of providers with adequate training in the provision of culturally relevant care as well as the small number of mental health providers of different minority race and ethnic populations. The shortages of these professionals may result in the absence of care, the provision of substandard care, poor consumer outcomes, the lack of culturally acceptable care and, ultimately, in negative health for the community. Using existing data we will evaluate the impact of having different amounts and mixes of professionals on public health and utilization types of outcomes. We will: 1) determine the influence of community characteristics including race, poverty and rurality on the availability of different types of mental health professionals; 2) evaluate the relationship between current and proposed numbers of professionals, the need for culturally relevant mental health care and the outcomes of mental health care; and 3) propose better methods for determining a shortage of mental health professionals (e.g. HPSA's). Products of the research will include a CD with information on the nation, states', and counties' mental health workforce. This data will be available for use in planning by policy-makers and for use in other research studies. The study will provide both improved data and improved methods to create and evaluate different definitions of Mental Health Shortage Areas. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration more than 34 federal programs depend on the shortage designation to determine eligibility or as a funding reference (HRSA, 2002). This study will provide improved accuracy to these important designations which influence eligibility for participation in federal programs, loan repayment for the National Health Service Corps and financial incentives to providers for caring for Medicare clients residing in these designated areas.