Perspectives

Potential Provider Oversupply and Underserved Areas: The Future of Alabama Medicine

Authors: Kelly R. Warren, MSW, MPH, Bernard H. Eichold,MD, DrPH, Elizabeth Morrissette, AB

Abstract

Alabama must turn around its primary care provider deficit in its rural areas or risk its population’s health, finances, and well-being. Recent data show that a large portion of Alabama’s population is moving from rural areas to urban areas of the state, seeking jobs, whereas others are leaving Alabama for other areas in the United States. In addition, the population growth of Alabama has slowed considerably during the last 50 years. Alabama’s population has only risen 9.4% since 2000, but that increase was not the result of an increase in births, because the number of children born decreased. In contrast, during that same period, the population older than age 65 years has increased >16.1%.1

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