The interactive map and table below display data for Alabama Physician Assistants (PAs), aggregated by primary care service area (PCSA). There are 79 PCSAs. Each PCSA is based on a centroid: a single general admission hospital in most cases, or a cluster of such hospitals in a few large urban areas, or the center of a small town without a hospital in a few rural cases. The PCSA corresponding to the centroid consists of the region of the state that is closer to that centroid than any other, as measured by drive time through the road network. The centroids are distributed throughout the state so that the PCSAs generally correspond to drive times of 30 minutes or less to the centroids. Like the counties, the PCSAs partition the state. For an introduction and user interface information, see the home page.

Map

The base layer consists of Alabama's 79 PCSAs. Click on a PCSA to see summary information. The dentists and dental hygienists can be added as point layers with the layer control.

Table

In the table below, click on rows to highlight the corresponding PCSAs in the map above. Click on a selected row to de-select and remove the highlight.

Summary Information

Two PCSAs in Alabama (Chatom and Eutaw) have no dentists. For the US as a whole, the dentist per 10000 population ratio is 6.1. Fully 75 of Alabama's 79 service areas are below this ratio, and so are perhaps underserved.