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Title: What Commute Patterns Can Tell Us About the Supply of Allied Health Workers and Registered Nurses
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2020
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Abstract: Information on the available supply of workers in a local job market is important when determining whether there are qualified workers to fill health care jobs in demand. The American Community Survey (ACS), a publicly available annual survey of over 3.5 million households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, has been a regular source of information for mapping the geographic distribution of a wide range of occupations, describing the time, duration and distance of workers' commutes, and identifying common forms of transportation for commuting. In this study, we explore what the ACS can tell us about commuting patterns among selected allied health occupations and registered nurses (RNs) as well as how these patterns may inform discussions of health workforce supply. We analyzed 13 occupations, which included 11 allied health occupations and 2 categories of RNs, those with less than a bachelor's degree and those with a bachelor's degree in nursing or higher. We restricted our analysis to individuals 18 years of age and above, currently employed in the United States. We excluded individuals who reported working from home. Our weighted sample represented 9,318,682 individuals. Our key findings are: n Most individuals commuted to a different geographic area from their home. n The average one-way commute time for these occupations ranged from 24.5 to 31.2 minutes compared to the nationwide average for all workers' commute time of 27.0 minutes, and most of these commuters drove alone. n Blacks, Asians/Pacific Islanders, and other non-White races experienced 1 to 2 minutes longer commute on average compared to Whites. On the other hand, Hispanics had about a 45-second shorter commute compared to non-Hispanics. n Public transportation was most commonly used in the Northeast Census region where public transportation is widely available, and it was associated with more minutes spent commuting compared to other forms of transportation. n One additional minute spent commuting by workers was associated with a 0.13% average increase in individual wages. Wage gains associated with spending more time commuting tended to diminish for the longest commutes in four occupations: clinical lab technicians/technologists, home health aides, nursing/psychiatric aides, and dental hygienists. n Compared to driving alone, carpooling, commuting by public transportation, and relying on other transportation lowered wages by 9.8%, 21.4%, and 31.8%, respectively. Our study found that commute patterns among allied health care workers and RNs generally followed national patterns across all occupations including average commute time and common modes of transportation. ACS is a valuable resource that provides detailed commuting information for a wide swath of health care workers although there are limitations and results should be interpreted with some caution. Despite these limitations, a key takeaway from this study is that when estimating supply of health care workers, researchers and workforce planners need to measure local supply based not only on where people report working but also where they live.
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Authors: Dahal, Arati; Skillman, Susan M; Patterson, Davis G; Frogner, Bianca K
Publisher: Center for Health Workforce Studies
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Population Health and Health Systems
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