States With The Most And Least Doctors Per Capita In 2020

How prepared is your state's health care system for a national health emergency?

In an attempt to discover which states might be the best and worst equipped to handle future health crises like the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Benzinga analyzed data from Country Health Rankings and Roadmaps.

Our goal was to identify the states that possess the most and least primary doctors per capita, or per person. 

Based on the data, we ultimately ranked states by order of their ratio of primary care physicians to residents.

In the case of COVID-19, the federal government has allocated ventilators to states based on reported per capita infection and hospitalization rates.

Measuring how many primary care doctors per capita are available may give us an excellent view of which states have the highest levels of preparedness in the event of another health care crisis like the coronavirus.

10 States With The Most Doctors Per Capita In 2020

• Vermont - one primary care doctor per every 886 residents
• Maine - one primary care doctor per every 898 residents
• Massachusetts - one primary care doctor per every 968 residents
• Rhode Island - one primary care doctor per every 1,029 residents
• Oregon - one primary care doctor per every 1,063 residents
• Alaska - one primary care doctor per every 1,099 residents
• New Hampshire - one primary care doctor per every 1,102 residents
• Minnesota - one primary care doctor per every 1,118 residents
• Maryland - one primary care doctor per every 1,141 residents
• Hawaii - one primary care doctor per every 1,142 residents

10 States With The Least Doctors Per Capita In 2020

• Mississippi - one primary care doctor per every 1,889 residents
• Nevada - one primary care doctor per every 1,768 residents
• Utah - one primary care doctor per every 1,727 residents
• Texas - one primary care doctor per every 1,642 residents
• Oklahoma - one primary care doctor per every 1,616 residents
• Alabama - one primary care doctor per every 1,543 residents
• Georgia - one primary care doctor per every 1,528 residents
• Kentucky - one primary care doctor per every 1,523 residents
• Idaho - one primary care doctor per every 1,517 residents
• Indiana - one primary care doctor per every 1,511 residents

East Coast Bias?

In the United states, as far as primary care physician representation is concerned, the northeast dominates the rest of the nation.

Five of the 10 best primary care physician-to-resident ratios can be found in the northeast (Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire).

Overall, Vermont has the most primary care doctors per capita in the U.S. 

The South Lags Behind In 2020

The state of Mississippi is home to the worst primary care physician-to-resident ratio in the US.

For every 1,889 residents, there's one primary care doctor. Nevada isn't far behind (one per 1,768 residents) and Utah (one per 1,727 residents) has the third-worst doctor per capita ratio, according to the Country Health Rankings and Roadmaps data. 

Six of the 10 states with the worst primary care doctor-to-resident ratio can be found in the south (Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky).

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