Increasing and Diversifying the Primary Care Physician Workforce

The lack of an adequate primary care physician workforce has been a decades-long challenge facing the delivery of healthcare in the United States of America (USA). Previous research has highlighted how strengthening the nation's primary care infrastructure is a critical part of improving the nation's health. Strengthening the infrastructure may also be a strategy for addressing the disproportionate burden of poor health and health outcomes experienced by underserved populations. But, little attention has been focused on how the primary care workforce may affect health disparities. This commentary highlights the importance of the provision of primary care services for populations that experience health disparities, ways that the primary care workforce shortage affects these populations, and potential solutions to expand the reach of the current workforce and to build a diverse workforce to meet the growing needs of the increasingly diverse US population.