Geographical Distribution of Newly Accredited Anesthesiology Training Programs in Relation to Health Professional Shortage Areas and Medically Underserved Populations.

Background: Expanding the physician workforce in underserved areas is imperative for addressing healthcare disparities. The creation of new residency training programs has assisted in these efforts. However, anesthesiology training programs are infrequently studied in this regard. Our objective was to compare the geographical distribution of newly accredited anesthesiology training programs with new surgery, obstetrics, and family practice programs with respect to health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) and medically underserved populations.

Methods: The locations of residency training programs accredited between 2014 and 2024 were identified by querying the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database Access System. Whether the postal address of the training program corresponded to a medically underserved area or population was then recorded. HPSA and maternal care target area (MCTA) scores were also collected as an indicator of poor access to primary care or maternal care for the postal addresses of each program. Bivariate US maps qualitatively compared the geographical distributions of newly accredited training programs, analysis of variance and t tests were used to compare HPSA and MCTA scores, and χ² tests were used to compare the percentage of programs in medically underserved areas.

Results: Forty-eight anesthesiology programs became accredited between 2014 and 2024, as well as 127 surgical, 360 family medicine, and 68 obstetrical programs (total = 603). States with higher HPSA scores tended to have a relatively lower numbers of newly accredited anesthesiology and surgery programs. The mean HPSA and MCTA scores for anesthesiology programs were comparable to those for family medicine and obstetrical programs, respectively (P > .5). There was no statistically significant difference noted among the distribution of anesthesia, surgery, family medicine, or obstetrical training programs in medically underserved areas (P > .5).

Discussion: The geographical distributions of new anesthesiology and surgery training programs are qualitatively similar. Like family medicine and obstetrical training programs, newly accredited anesthesiology training programs are in HPSAs with comparable need priorities as evidenced by statistically similar HPSA and MCTA scores. However, with only roughly one-third of all newly accredited family medicine, obstetrical, surgery, and anesthesiology training programs in medically underserved areas, substantial work is still needed.

Conclusion: States with higher HPSA scores tend to have a relatively lower number of newly accredited anesthesiology and surgery programs. The locations of newly accredited anesthesiology training programs are similar to those of newly accredited family medicine and obstetrical training programs as evidenced by similar HPSA and MCTA scores, respectively.