As vaccines to inoculate healthcare workers against the COVID-19 virus are given with agonizing slowness, a Social Explorer analysis of newly released 2015-19 American Community Survey data highlights one of the biggest difficulties involved: Geography. Among the 18 U.S. counties where 10 percent or more of the workforce consists of healthcare support employees such as medical assistants and home health aides, only one – Bronx County, N.Y. – is a major population center.

The highest local percentage of the nation’s 5 million healthcare support employees can be found in Cottle County, Texas, where 16.9 percent of workers are medical assistants or aides. It’s followed by Mora County, N.M. (16.3 percent), and Crowley County, Colo. (15.2 percent). The largest geographic concentration of healthcare support workers is in poor counties, especially in the Rio Grande Valley. Check out the percentage of these key healthcare personnel in your county with Social Explorer’s customizable, award-winning mapping tools.

Healthcare Support Employees Across the U.S. Click here to explore further.

Author: Frank Bass