Adults who live in counties with more psychologists tend to report fewer poor mental and physical health days per month, even after controlling for variables such as income and health insurance coverage, according to a county-level analysis.1 Counties with more psychologists also have significantly fewer adults who drink excessively or smoke, or who have diabetes, obesity or are physically inactive.
Although the relationship between the distribution of licensed psychologists and health is only correlational, these findings help identify regions in which there are shortages of and high demand for psychologists. Concentrations of licensed psychologists are highest in the Northeast and along the Pacific coast, and significantly lower in the South, which also does significantly worse on most health indicators.
Poor mental health days and concentration of licensed psychologists at county level, 20151
— Luona Lin, MPP, Peggy Christidis, PhD, and Karen Stamm, PhD
For more information, contact APA's Center for Workforce Studies.
1
American Psychological Association. (2016).
County-level analysis of U.S. licensed psychologists and health indicators
. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from
https://www.apa.org/workforce/publications/15-county-analysis
. Concentrations of licensed psychologists were based on the number of active doctoral-level licensed psychologists per 100,000 population. The analysis used multiple linear regression and controlled for various demographic, socio-economic, health insurance-related and environmental variables.
