Coronavirus in Florida: State has below-average number of health care workers

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A new report is exposing Florida’s shortage of health care professionals amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While nurses and health care professionals express frustrations, the report from Self Financial Inc., highlights which states face an uphill battle with coronavirus as an already strained health care system is stretched to its limits.

To find out how many health care workers Florida had per capita, researchers analyzed statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Metro areas across the country were ordered by the total number of health care workers employed per 100 residents.

The total number of health care workers includes both practitioners – physicians, surgeons and registered nurses – and health care support occupations such as home health aides, nursing assistants and medical equipment preparers.

The metropolitan areas with the most health care workers per capita were located in the Midwest or the Northeast.

Southern states were found to have a significantly lower density of health care workers.

Between its 532,310 health care practitioners and 252,750 health care support workers, Florida has a total of 785,060 total health care workers serving the state’s population of 21,299,325. That means there are 3.69 health care professionals for every 100 residents. 

That brings the state’s number of health care workers per capita below the national average of 3.90.

Across the country, 8,646,730 health care practitioners and 4,117,450 health care support workers make a total of 12,764,180 health care employees.