For hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and their families, when the Pentagon orders them to find health care off base there is none. An NPR analysis found that 50% of active duty military installations stand within federally designated Healthcare Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA). Those are places where medical services are hard to find - commonly called health care deserts.
It's incumbent on the military to make sure that when you send a family to a location, the support and resources are available to take care of them. And that obviously includes healthcare, she says. NPR mapped counties designated as shortage areas for primary care, mental health care and maternity care nationwide. Excluding National Guard installations, half the bases landed within at least one desert.
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