{"main_topic":"health","sub_topic":"workforce","topic":"physicians_by_specialty","key":"health/workforce/physicians_by_specialty","version":"1.0.0","year_min":2006,"year_max":2024,"year_gaps":[2007,2009,2010,2011,2012,2014,2016,2018,2019,2021,2023],"update_frequency":"biennial","detail_levels":["counties","states"],"default_detail":"counties","path_template":"health/physicians_by_specialty/year={year}/{detail}.parquet","grain":["year","county_fips","tract_geoid","specialty"],"title":"Physicians by Specialty","summary":"Practicing physicians per 100,000 residents in each Georgia county, all physicians and core specialties, 2006-2024.","description":"How many actively licensed physicians practice in each Georgia county and statewide, and physicians per 100,000 residents: all physicians, and the core specialties family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery, emergency medicine (from 2013) and psychiatry (from 2017), from the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce's license-renewal surveys, for 2006, 2008, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024. No county figures are available for the years between.","explorer":true,"search_aliases":{"en":["number of doctors","doctors per capita","doctor supply","family doctors","pediatricians","OB-GYN doctors","psychiatrists","ER doctors","surgeons","medical workforce"],"es":["número de médicos","médicos por habitante","médico de familia","pediatras","ginecólogos obstetras","psiquiatras","médicos de emergencias","cirujanos","personal médico","oferta de médicos"]},"source":"Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce (formerly the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce): Physicians by Specialty by County tables 2006, 2008, 2013, 2015 and 2017 (PDF), and the Physician Workforce dashboard data download (physician_data.zip, license-renewal cycles 2019-2020, 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, files dated 2025-04-28), retrieved 2026-10-24","source_url":"https://healthcareworkforce.georgia.gov/main-publications-reports/data-publications/physicians-specialty-county; https://gdac.georgia.gov/health-0 (Physician Workforce dashboard, https://prod.insights.georgia.gov/views/StateofGeorgiaPhysicianWorkforce/PhysicianWorkforceOverview; the zip is the dashboard's data-download link)","endpoint":"/api/v1/health/physicians_by_specialty","columns":[{"name":"year","type":"integer","role":"year","nullable":false,"label":"Year","short_description":"","description":"Year the board gives the figures: the year printed on its county table (2006, 2008, 2013, 2015, 2017) or the end year of its two-year license-renewal survey cycle (2020 = 2019-2020, 2022 = 2021-2022, 2024 = 2023-2024). See year_meaning.","valid_values":null,"example":2024,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"county_fips","type":"string","role":"fk_county","nullable":true,"label":"County FIPS","short_description":"","description":"5-digit FIPS code of the county where the physicians practice, matched from the board's county name through the counties dimension. NULL on the Georgia (state) row.","valid_values":null,"example":"13121","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"tract_geoid","type":"string","role":"fk_tract","nullable":true,"label":"Tract GEOID","short_description":"","description":"Always NULL: the board reports by county. Kept for the health domain's standard key shape.","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"specialty","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":false,"label":"Specialty","short_description":"Physician specialty: all physicians, or one of the board's core specialties.","description":"Physician specialty. all = every practicing physician, whatever the specialty (or none recorded); the other values are the board's core specialties, each the physician's primary reported specialty: family_medicine (printed Family Practice in 2006 and 2008), internal_medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics_gynecology (OB/GYN), general_surgery, emergency_medicine (from 2013) and psychiatry (from 2017). Subspecialties are not included (child and adolescent psychiatry is not psychiatry; pediatric cardiology is not pediatrics). The core specialties do not overlap but do not add up to all. all is missing in 2013 and 2015, when the board printed no all-physicians count.","valid_values":["all","family_medicine","internal_medicine","pediatrics","obstetrics_gynecology","general_surgery","emergency_medicine","psychiatry"],"example":"pediatrics","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"num_physicians","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Number of Physicians","short_description":"","description":"Actively licensed physicians practicing in the county in the specialty, as the board counts them from license renewals: printed in its county tables (2006-2017; three blank cells in 2013 and 2015 read as 0) or summed from its dashboard file (2020-2024; a county with no physician of a core specialty is 0). The state row is the sum of the 159 counties. The numerator of physicians_per_100k.","valid_values":null,"example":42,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Never NULL: the board publishes every county's figures with no suppression. A specialty the board did not publish in a year has no row (emergency medicine before 2013, psychiatry before 2017, all in 2013 and 2015).","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":"numerator"},{"name":"num_population","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Population","short_description":"","description":"The county's population as the board gives it beside the counts: its population estimate for the year. For 2022 and 2024 it is the U.S. Census Bureau's county estimate as first published, for July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023 (the 2024 rows divide by the 2023 estimate, which the board's 2024 county report labels 2023 Population); the 2013 and 2017 state totals also equal the Census Bureau's estimates for those years as first published. 2008 is from the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget; the board names no source for 2006, 2015 or 2020. Later Census vintages revise these estimates. The same on every specialty row of a county and year: never add it across specialties. The state row is the sum of the counties. The denominator of physicians_per_100k.","valid_values":null,"example":152862,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Never NULL: the board publishes every county's figures with no suppression. A specialty the board did not publish in a year has no row (emergency medicine before 2013, psychiatry before 2017, all in 2013 and 2015).","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":"denominator"},{"name":"physicians_per_100k","type":"number","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Physicians per 100,000 Residents","short_description":"Practicing physicians in the specialty per 100,000 county residents.","description":"Physicians per 100,000 residents: our calculation, num_physicians x 100,000 / num_population, unrounded. Matches every rate the board printed (2006-2017) and its dashboard's all-physicians rate (2020-2024) to the published precision, except two board inconsistencies: Barrow 2006 family medicine (printed 21.9, computed 23.6 from 14 physicians) and Union 2013 pediatrics (printed 0.0 for 1 physician). For several counties or years, pool as SUM(num_physicians) x 100,000 / SUM(num_population). In a small county one physician moves the rate a lot.","valid_values":null,"example":27.5,"unit":"rate_per_population","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Never NULL: the board publishes every county's figures with no suppression. A specialty the board did not publish in a year has no row (emergency medicine before 2013, psychiatry before 2017, all in 2013 and 2015).","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null}],"key_metric":"physicians_per_100k","numeric_filter_columns":["num_physicians","num_population","physicians_per_100k"],"usage":"Star-schema fact table at state and county grain. Join the counties dimension on county_fips (NULL on the Georgia row); tract_geoid is always NULL. Pin specialty: all is every physician; each other value is one core specialty, and the core values do not add up to all. To pool several counties or years, compute SUM(num_physicians) * 100000 / SUM(num_population) within one specialty, never an average of county rates; num_population repeats on every specialty row of a place and year, so never add it across specialties. Read directly with DuckDB over Parquet.","limitations":"Only 2006, 2008, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024: no county table from the board is available for the years between. Counts come from license-renewal surveys (self-reported). Specialties are the board's core list, which grew: emergency medicine from 2013, psychiatry from 2017, and no all-physicians total in 2013 or 2015. In 2022 and 2024, 2,195 and 1,860 physicians (7.9% and 6.7%) have no recorded specialty: they count in all but in no specialty, so specialty counts in those years may be low and a drop from 2020 (when every physician had one) can partly reflect missing specialties. A physician counts in one specialty, the primary one reported: subspecialists are not in the core values (child and adolescent psychiatrists are not in psychiatry, pediatric subspecialists not in pediatrics, gynecologic oncologists not in obstetrics_gynecology), and the core specialties add up to about half of all physicians, not to all. Physicians per 100,000 residents is our calculation from the board's counts and the board's own population figures (its estimate for the year: the Census Bureau's county estimates as first published in 2022 and 2024, which use the July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023 estimates, and apparently in 2013 and 2017; 2008 from the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget), so it can differ from a rate on the latest Census estimates, which later vintages revise. It matches every rate the board printed to the printed 0.1 except two board inconsistencies: Barrow County 2006 family medicine (14 physicians, printed 21.9, computed 23.6) and Union County 2013 pediatrics (1 physician, printed 0.0). Three count cells printed blank in 2013 and 2015 (Murray pediatrics; Jenkins and Jones internal medicine) are read as 0, as their printed 0.0 rates and the 2015 totals show. State rows are the sum of all 159 counties, equal to the totals the board prints. In a small county one or two physicians move the rate a lot, and some county counts jump between editions (Chattahoochee, home of Fort Benning: 0 in 2020 and 2022, 92 in 2024); the source also changed from the board's county PDF tables (through 2017) to its dashboard file (2020 on), so compare the two eras with care. The board suppresses nothing: there are no NULLs, and a 0 is a real count (9 or 10 counties had no physician at all in 2020-2024). Physician demographics and Medicaid/Medicare acceptance are in the board's file but not in this table. tract_geoid is always NULL.","null_semantics":{"suppressed_to_null":false,"zero_is_real":true},"available_years":[2006,2008,2013,2015,2017,2020,2022,2024],"schema_hash":"a1067a05febc7668ff50c80a0a85b940e756742ea7cdaaf18889d06717e7424b","tags":["health","georgia board of health care workforce","physicians_by_specialty"],"granularity_description":"One row per year, county_fips, tract_geoid, specialty (geography columns are NULL at higher aggregation levels).","example_queries":[{"description":"Latest year (2024), counties detail","query":"SELECT * FROM physicians_by_specialty WHERE year = 2024 LIMIT 100"},{"description":"Filter by specialty = pediatrics","query":"SELECT * FROM physicians_by_specialty WHERE specialty = 'pediatrics' AND year = 2024 LIMIT 100"}],"foreign_keys":[{"column":"county_fips","target_object":"counties","target_columns":["county_fips"],"attribute_columns_added":["county_name"],"scope":"global"},{"column":"tract_geoid","target_object":"tracts","target_columns":["tract_geoid"],"attribute_columns_added":["tract_name"],"scope":"global"}],"filters":[{"param":"year","kind":"year_exact","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_min","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_max","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"detail","kind":"detail","type":"string","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["counties","states"],"default":"counties"},{"param":"county_fips","kind":"foreign_key","column":"county_fips","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"tract_geoid","kind":"foreign_key","column":"tract_geoid","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"specialty","kind":"categorical","column":"specialty","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["all","family_medicine","internal_medicine","pediatrics","obstetrics_gynecology","general_surgery","emergency_medicine","psychiatry"],"has_total":true,"total_value":"all","requires_single_value":false,"nullable":false,"null_filter_token":null}],"filter_hints":[],"non_additive":[{"column":"specialty","reason":"num_population is the place's whole population, repeated on every specialty row as the denominator of that row's rate, so a sum across specialties counts the same residents again.","metrics":["num_population"]}],"partitions":[],"value_implications":[],"year_meaning":"year is the year the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce gives the figures. For 2020, 2022 and 2024 it is the end year of a two-year license-renewal survey cycle (2019-2020, 2021-2022, 2023-2024), the board's own label for a cycle: its 2020 county report reproduces the 2019-2020 cycle's totals. A cycle's figures describe physicians as they reported at renewal during the cycle, not on one date. For 2006, 2008, 2013, 2015 and 2017 it is the year printed on the board's county table. The population beside the counts is the board's estimate for the year it used: the 2024 rows divide by the July 1, 2023 estimate, as the board's 2024 county report does. No county figures exist for the years between.","pooled_rates":[],"series_breaks":[],"year_window":null,"pooled_min_count":null,"values_endpoint":"/api/v1/health/physicians_by_specialty/values"}