HRSA Announcement: Area Resource File Updated

HRSA announces that the 2011-2012 version of the Area Resource File (ARF) has been updated.

Established in 1975, the ARF is a health resource information database used extensively by researchers, planners and policy makers to obtain data on all counties in the United States.

Updates include: health workforce (e.g., physicians by specialty, dentists, physician assistants, certified nurse midwives); health professions shortage areas; health facilities (e.g., hospitals, rural health clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, nursing facilities); health expenditures (e.g., hospital facilities expenditures, Medicare Advantage payment rates); demographics (e.g., population by race, poverty, income, health insurance, and Medicaid eligibles); and more.

The ARF contains more than 6,000 variables with 3,225 records from more than 50 sources, including the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, U.S. Census Bureau, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and National Center for Health Statistics. The file lists the types of data and years for which the individual data elements are available, and provides links to more detailed content. Also available is a link to the Health Resources County Comparison Tool, which was built from ARF data and facilitates comparison of ARF data across counties.

The 2011-2012 file can now be downloaded at no cost in ASCII and Access formats. Visit www.arf.hrsa.gov for a complete listing of data and instructions for downloading the file. The ARF is also available in HRSA’s Data Warehouse at http://datawarehouse.hrsa.gov/ARF.aspx.

Under a new contract effective July 1, HRSA will be expanding the ARF to include state and national level data. In addition, new data elements, assessment tools and mapping capability will make the ARF even more valuable to researchers and consumers.