How much mental-health need is met, state by state

The short version

The federal government designates a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area, or HPSA, wherever the supply of providers falls short of the population's need, generally once the population-to-psychiatrist ratio passes 30,000 to 1, or 20,000 to 1 in unusually high-need communities. For each state, HRSA also publishes a "percent of need met," which compares the providers an area has to the number it would take to clear the shortage. The national figure sits at about 27.3%, and no state clears 53%. This is a different lens on the same problem as raw psychiatrist supply: it weighs supply against measured need, not just headcount against population.

Percent of mental-health need met, by state

Ranked from the least need met to the most. The last column is HRSA's estimate of the additional clinicians it would take to end the shortage designations in that state.

HRSA Designated Health Professional Shortage Area statistics, reflecting data as of December 31, 2025 (published January 2026). Vermont and West Virginia are discussed separately below. We refresh this table as HRSA publishes new quarterly data.

Where the least need is met

At the bottom, meeting the least of their measured need, are District of Columbia, Delaware, Arizona, Alaska, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maine, New York. The District of Columbia sits at 0%, which reflects how HRSA scores a small, entirely-urban jurisdiction rather than an absence of clinicians; DC actually has the most psychiatrists per resident in the country. That contrast is the whole point of using two measures. A place can have many psychiatrists and still carry a formal shortage designation for the populations and facilities that can't reach them. Most of the states low on this list, though, are genuinely thin: Arizona, Alaska, North Carolina, and Tennessee meet barely a tenth to an eighth of their need.

Where the most need is met

At the top are New Jersey, Utah, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Georgia, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Colorado. New Jersey leads at about 52%, followed by Utah and Rhode Island. Even so, the ceiling is low: the best-served state in the country still meets only about half of its measured mental-health need, and most states meet less than a third. There is no state where the shortage is solved.

What "percent of need met" actually measures

Read this number as need-weighted, not as a simple provider count. HRSA calculates it by comparing the providers available in a designated area with the number required to bring the population-to-provider ratio below the shortage threshold. Two limits matter. First, many mental-health HPSAs are designated on psychiatrist-to-population ratios, so the measure can understate access delivered by psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and marriage and family therapists. Second, the designations are geographic, population-group, or facility based, so a state figure blends very different local situations. Treat it as the clearest official read on unmet need, not a precise access score.

What closes the gap

Because the shortage is about reach as much as headcount, the tools that move these numbers are the ones that extend a scarce clinician. Telepsychiatry lets a psychiatrist licensed in a state serve its shortage areas without either party traveling. The collaborative care model lets one psychiatrist support many primary-care patients indirectly. HPSA designations themselves drive loan-repayment and placement incentives meant to steer new clinicians toward the areas that need them. This is the case for multistate telepsychiatry in particular: shrinkMD, the network's clinical practice, provides exactly that in a growing list of states.

Two states not ranked here

We left two states out of the ranked table on purpose. HRSA did not report a percent-of-need-met figure for Vermont in this quarter, so there is no value to rank. For West Virginia, the figure in the secondary compilation we used is internally inconsistent with its own ranking, which points to a transcription error, so we have held it out pending a check against the primary HRSA report rather than publish a number we can't stand behind. Both states remain in HRSA's shortage-area designations; only the single percent-of-need-met value is unavailable or unreliable here.

How we built this

The figures come from the Health Resources and Services Administration's Bureau of Health Workforce, from its quarterly Designated Health Professional Shortage Area statistics reflecting data as of December 31, 2025, as compiled from the federal report. HRSA is the primary source for shortage designations; the Kaiser Family Foundation republishes the same series. Shortage designations are updated quarterly, so we date this page and refresh it as new figures land. For the supply side of the same story, see our companion table of psychiatrists per capita by state.