Health Workforce Strategies for California: A Review of the Evidence

California is facing a health workforce crisis. There are not enough health workers to meet the needs of its increasingly diverse, growing, and aging population, and the situation is worsening. Shortages exist across professions and geographies, with sizeable urban and rural underserved populations. Additionally, although the state population is becoming increasingly diverse, the current health workforce doesn’t reflect these demographic shifts. For example, in 2019, 39% of Californians identified as Latinx, but only 14% of medical school matriculants and 6% of active patient care physicians in California were Latinx.