Importance: Given the disparities in access to primary care and the growing nurse practitioner (NP) workforce, it is important to understand the distribution of primary care practices with NPs across communities of varying socioeconomic characteristics.
Objective: To compare the socioeconomic characteristics of communities that have primary care practices with or without NPs.
Design, Setting, and Participants: This secondary, cross-sectional analysis of 79 743 primary care practices used 4 merged data sources: the IQVIA 2023 OneKey database, the 2020 US biennial Census, the 2017-2022 American Community Survey, and the 2021 Area Deprivation Index (ADI). US Census Tracts and Divisions from 2023 were used to examine differences in socioeconomic characteristics across communities.
Exposure: Primary care practices with NPs vs without NPs.
Main Outcomes and Measures: Socioeconomic characteristics of Census Tracts and Block Groups, including racial and ethnic composition, median household income, percentage below the federal poverty level, educational attainment, and the ADI (an ordinal percentile ranking of Census Block Groups from 1 to 100, with 1 being least disadvantaged and 100 being most disadvantaged).
Results: Of 79 743 primary care practices, 42 601 (53.4%) employed NPs in 2023. Practices with NPs, compared with those without, were significantly more likely to be in communities classified as low income (23.3% vs 17.0%; P < .001) and rural (11.9% vs 5.5%; P < .001). On average, these communities had a higher proportion of the population living below the federal poverty level (14.4% [95% CI, 14.3%-14.5%] vs 12.8% [95% CI, 12.7%-12.9%]; P < .001) and without a high school diploma (19.8% [95% CI, 19.7%-19.9%] vs 18.5% [95% CI, 18.4%-18.6%]; P < .001). Communities with practices with NPs also had significantly higher mean ADI percentiles than communities with practices without NPs (53.3% [95% CI, 53.1%-53.6%] vs 42.5% [95% CI, 42.2%-42.7%]; P < .001). As the number of primary care practices decreased in disadvantaged areas, the proportion of practices with NPs increased. In most US Census Divisions, there were more primary care practices with NPs than without, a difference that was marked in low-income communities.
Conclusions and Relevance: This cross-sectional study of primary care practices in the US found that primary care practices with NPs, compared with those without NPs, were more likely to be located in communities with lower income and educational attainment and greater levels of overall socioeconomic disadvantage. This finding suggests that NPs are key to ensuring access to primary care in communities with socioeconomic disadvantage.
