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Evidence methods

How the Workforce Brief is built.

Claritypoint organizes public source records for one county and one edition. Calculations and exports are deterministic; a free profile does not establish that a reviewed paid package is available.

Extrasphere Media LLC and Claritypoint are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), or any other government agency. References to public datasets are for source attribution only.

Methods note

Methods note. This brief is one county and one reviewed edition. Designated and Proposed-for-Withdrawal rows are included; Withdrawn rows are excluded. HPSA score, FTE short, underserved population, and formal ratio stay on the designation that published them and are not added into a county total. The highest published score is a maximum, not an average. Each source keeps its own measurement period and retrieval date. Profile, designation, MUA/P, wage, and benchmark counts use different denominators; those counts are stated once below.

County counts in this edition are not one denominator. There are 3,222 county and county-equivalent profiles (the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico). 3,174 have at least one included HPSA designation and 48 are a real zero. 3,213 have an attributable MUA/P block and 3,182 have a QCEW wage block. A benchmark's n is only the counties with a value for that metric, so it can be smaller than 3,222.

Data dictionary

These are the terms used in a county brief. The complete CSV column list is on the sources page.

Designated
HRSA status meaning the designation is in force. A count of designation rows, not of people.
Proposed for Withdrawal
HRSA status meaning the designation is still listed and proposed for withdrawal. Included here. Withdrawn rows are excluded.
HPSA score
Federal priority score on one designation (0-25 primary care and mental health; 0-26 dental). Not averaged across the county.
FTE short
Practitioner shortage published for one designation. Not a county total.
Underserved population
HRSA population estimate for one designation. Overlapping designations are not a county population.
Formal ratio
Population-to-provider ratio published for one designation, kept as HRSA wrote it.
IMU score
Index of Medical Underservice on an MUA/P row, 0-100. A lower score means greater underservice.
Health center site
A listed HRSA service location (permanent, mobile, or seasonal). Not appointments and not staffed capacity.
QCEW employment and pay
BLS annual average jobs and payroll per job for private-ownership NAICS 621 and 623. NAICS 6216 sits inside 621 and is not added again. Pay is not an occupation salary.
ACS population
Census county population for its own period. The 65+ figure sums published age bands.

From source file to county brief

  1. Fix the county and edition

    Each profile uses a five-character county or county-equivalent FIPS code. The report names its source edition, measurement periods, acquisition dates and retained source fingerprints. A new source snapshot is a candidate for review, not an automatic replacement for a published edition.

  2. Retain attributable HRSA records

    HPSA and MUA/P records are associated with a county only when the published file supports that attribution. HRSA designations can span more than one county or overlap. Scores, practitioner shortages and designation populations remain attached to the designation; they are not county-exclusive totals.

  3. Count listed health center sites

    Active HRSA health center sites are matched to the published county. The site list preserves source identifiers and location details. A listed site is neither a count of available appointments nor evidence of staffed capacity. Rows without attributable county geography are excluded from county counts and recorded in source reconciliation.

  4. Add labor and population context

    BLS QCEW rows show annual industry employment and average pay for the published county, industry and ownership coverage. Industry pay is not an occupation salary, a median, or a vacancy measure. Census ACS population is an estimate for its stated period. Suppressed and unavailable values stay distinct from reported zero.

  5. Validate and package the release

    The normalized artifact, source manifest, PDF and complete CSV are checked for matching edition and county identities. Only reviewed, published packages can be offered for purchase. Purchased files are retained as immutable edition-specific objects; a later refresh does not silently replace them.

Interpretation limits

  • A county profile is not a city, drive-time, referral-flow or patient-demand analysis.
  • HPSA and MUA/P designations may overlap or span counties. Do not sum their populations or practitioner shortages into a regional total.
  • Health center site counts measure listed locations, not utilization, open slots, workforce capacity or service quality.
  • QCEW industry employment counts jobs, not unique workers; its average pay is not occupation-level compensation. Some cells are suppressed.
  • ACS population estimates have sampling error and may describe an older period than a current HRSA snapshot.
  • A source-row entry or exit is a change in archived snapshot membership, not a confirmed opening, closure or new designation event.
  • The Brief is business and market information, not medical, legal, compliance, reimbursement or investment advice.
Sources and field definitions →See the sample excerpt

Older Home Health, Hospice and Skilled Nursing previews remain private and are not part of the current launch offer. Their historical file methods travel with the corresponding archived report.