Fact Sheet: Nurse Practitioners and California’s Latino/x Community

Nurse practitioners (NPs), or enfermeros especilizados in Spanish,¹ are a vital part of California’s health care workforce. This Spanish language term for NP was codified in California state law AB 890, passed in 2020. They play a particularly important role providing high-quality care to underserved Californians, especially in Latino/x communities. They are more likely to work in safety-net settings, including community health centers, where Latino/x Californians disproportionately get their care.

Today, more than seven million Californians, the majority of whom are Latino/x, live in Health Professional Shortage Areas.³ With primary care and other provider shortages projected to grow over the next decade, NPs will play an even greater role in ensuring Latino/x families can access the care they need.⁴ That is especially true, given that NPs already represent nearly a third of California’s primary care workforce and that their numbers in the state are growing at twice the rate of physicians.

The care provided to Latinos/x in California should be the same high-quality care provided to all Californians. Research studies show that NPs provide primary care of similar quality as physicians and, in some aspects, NP quality of care may be higher.⁵

Latino/x Californians Face Growing Challenges Accessing Care

Nearly one in five Latino/x Californians report having no usual source of care.⁶ They are also:

• More likely to experience provider shortages: 44% said there are not enough primary care providers in their community to meet local needs, compared to 35% of Californians overall.⁷
• Most likely to say that they, or a family member, had to put off physical health care or skip a medical test due to cost in the last 12 months.⁸
• Least likely to say that they can get health care for themselves or their family at a location “that is easy to get to.”⁹
• Least likely to report that it’s easy to find health care they can afford for themselves or their family.¹⁰
• The least likely to report having a primary care provider, even when they are insured, compared to other insured Californians.¹¹

Nurse Practitioners Provide Care Where It’s Needed the Most

• NPs play an important role in the safety net. Over 60% of NPs in California say they always or almost always work with underserved populations.¹³
• NPs play a major role in community health centers. California NPs are more than twice as likely to work in a community health center than physicians.¹⁴
• NPs are more likely to speak Spanish than physicians. In California, 27% of NPs speak Spanish, compared to less than 20% of physicians.¹⁵
• NPs are more likely to work in primary care than physicians. Among California NPs, 59% work in primary care, compared to 17% of physicians.¹⁶ NPs also represent nearly a third of California’s primary care workforce, and their numbers in the state are growing at twice the rate of physicians.¹⁷
• NPs nationwide are more likely to work in rural communities than physicians.¹⁸

Notes

1. This Spanish language term for NP was codified in California state law AB 890, passed in 2020. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. “HPSA Find,” Health Resources and Services Administration. ↩︎
4. Meeting the Demand for Health: Final Report of the California Future Health Workforce Commission (PDF), California Future Health Workforce Commission (Commission), February 2019. ↩︎
5. Robin P. Newhouse et al., “Advanced Practice Nurse Outcomes 1990-2008: A Systematic Review,” Nursing Economics 29, no. 5 (Sep.–Oct. 2011): 230–50. ↩︎
6. Megan Thompson and Allison Valentine, Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity in California, 2021: Pattern of Inequity, California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), October 2021. ↩︎
7. The 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation / CHCF California Health Policy Survey, CHCF. ↩︎
8. Rebecca Catterson, Lucy Rabinowitz, and Emily Alvarez, The 2022 CHCF California Health Policy Survey, CHCF, January 2022. ↩︎
9. Catterson, Rabinowitz, and Alvarez, 2022 CHCF Survey. ↩︎
10. Catterson, Rabinowitz, and Alvarez. ↩︎
11. NORC report [forthcoming]. ↩︎
12. Meeting the Demand, Commission. ↩︎
13. Joanne Spetz et al., 2017 Survey of Nurse Practitioners and Certified Nurse Midwives, Healthforce Center at UCSF, April 2018. ↩︎
14.  Joanne Spetz, Expanding the Role of Nurse Practitioners in California: The Impact on Patient Access to Care (PDF), CHCF, May 2019. ↩︎
15. Spetz et al., 2017 Survey; and Janet M. Coffman, Igor Geyn, and Margaret Fix, California Physicians: Who They Are, How They Practice (PDF), CHCF, August 2017. ↩︎
16. Spetz et al., 2017 Survey; and Coffman, Geyn, and Fix, California Physicians. ↩︎
17. Spetz et al.; and Coffman, Geyn, and Fix. ↩︎
18. Meeting the Demand, Commission. ↩︎