Latino physician supply in California: sources, locations, and projections.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the number of Latino physicians in California, identify the schools and countries where they were educated, determine the percentage located in Latino areas, and project the supply of Latino physicians to 2020.


METHODS
From a 1999 list of 74,345 licensed physicians, the authors identified Latino U.S. medical graduates (USMGs) by "heavily Hispanic" surnames and Latino international medical graduates (IMGs) by country and school of graduation. The 1999 license addresses of all physicians in Los Angeles County were analyzed against 1998 Latino-population data by zip code. A baseline projection of the supply of Latino physicians was based on the ten-year (1986 to 1995) average annual production of Latino physicians educated in California, out of state, and in Latin America. A worst-case projection assumed the continuation of recent trends: a 32% decrease in California-educated Latino USMGs, a 19% decrease in out-of-state Latino USMGs, and a reduction of Latino IMGs to five per year.


RESULTS
In 1999, 3,578 Latino physicians comprised 4.8% of all Californian physicians. In contrast, Latinos made up 30.4% of the state's population. Latino physicians were more likely than non-Latinos to have addresses in a heavily Latino zip code. In the baseline projection, while the overall supply of Latino physicians will increase by nearly 30% by 2020, that growth will be dwarfed by the 74% growth in the Latino population over the same time. In the worst-case projection, the actual number of Latino physicians will decrease from the 1999 figure of 3,578 to 3,448 by 2020, while the Latino population continues to grow.


CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Latino USMG supply must be markedly increased in the number of first-year matriculants in both California and out-of-state schools. (2) The issue of Latino IMGs requires special attention, and may provide a temporary solution to the Latino physician shortfall. (3) Non-Latino physicians need to be prepared to be culturally effective with a large and growing Latino patient population.
Hayes-Bautista
D E
DE
Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA. cesla@ucla.edu
Hsu
P
P
Hayes-Bautista
M
M
Stein
R M
RM
Dowling
P
P
Beltran
R
R
Villagomez
J
J
D002140:California; D005544:Forecasting; D005550:Foreign Medical Graduates; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D010820:Physicians / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D011365:Professional Practice Location; D012577:Schools, Medical