Research Alert: April 27, 2026

The Distribution of the Youth Behavioral Health Workforce in Rural and Urban America in 2025

Children and youth living in rural areas face unique barriers to accessing mental health care, including shortages of child and youth behavioral health specialists and variable access to broadband for telehealth. The objective of this project was to examine the distribution of the child and youth behavioral health workforce across rural and urban areas of the U.S.

Key Findings:

• In 2025, rural counties had half the per capita supply of youth behavioral health clinicians compared to urban areas (33.7 vs. 68.9 per 100,000 youth, respectively).
• Nearly two-thirds of all rural U.S. counties (65.1%) lacked any youth behavioral health clinician, with this percentage increasing to 87.2% in the most remote counties.
• Youth/family/school psychologists were the most prevalent youth behavioral health clinicians in rural areas (19.2 per 100,000), while mental health clinical nurse specialists were largely absent (99.0% of rural counties and 89.2% of urban counties lacked this provider type).
• The East South Central Census Division had the lowest rural youth behavioral health clinician supply across all Census Divisions (9.8 per 100,000 youth).
• The West South Central Census Division had the lowest urban youth behavioral health clinician supply across all Census Divisions (26.3 per 100,000 youth).
• The New England Census Division had the largest supply of youth behavioral health clinicians in rural (86.5 per 100,000 youth) and urban areas (125.4 per 100,000 youth) across U.S. Census Divisions.

Additional Resources of Interest:

• More FORHP-funded research on Children and adolescents, Mental and behavioral health, Workforce
• More information about the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
• More information from the Rural Health Information Hub's topic guides: Healthcare Workforce, Mental Health