A growing body of evidence suggests that racial and ethnic similarities between physicians and their patients improves patient outcomes by increasing access to care for underserved populations. However, there is relatively little research on the racial and ethnic makeup of family physicians by urbanicity. This project explored the racial and ethnic distribution of family physicians in rural and urban areas nationwide, along with the personal demographics of their patients. This project used 2013-2020 American Board of Family Medicine data collected from family physicians.

Publications

• The Racial and Ethnic Diversity of the Family Physician Workforce in Non-Metropolitan and Metropolitan Counties
  Policy Brief
  Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
  Date: 06/2022
  Racial/ethnic concordance of clinicians and patients may improve health outcomes by increasing access to care for underserved populations. Our objective was to determine the distribution of family physicians (FPs) in rural areas by race/ethnicity and also whether rural minority FPs were more likely to be in underserved rural areas.