90%
26 of Utah’s 29 counties are designated as full or partial-county primary care health professional shortage areas.
The goal of the Utah Area Health Education Center (Utah AHEC) is to provide access to primary healthcare for Utah’s entire population. We focus on recruiting and supporting Utah’s primary care workforce, which in turn increases the capacity of our health system and improves health in communities throughout the state.
There are communities throughout Utah that face significant shortages in their primary care workforce, especially those in the underserved urban areas of the Wasatch Front and the rural areas across the state. The Utah AHEC works to address these challenges by preparing a diverse workforce of health professionals for practice in medically underserved rural and urban areas in a health system transformed to lower costs, enhance quality, improve satisfaction of healthcare professionals, and improve population health outcomes.
To achieve our mission, the Utah AHEC is organized into the Utah AHEC Program Office, hosted at the University of Utah, and three regional centers: Northern Utah AHEC hosted at Weber State University, Crossroads Utah AHEC hosted at Salt Lake Community College, and Southern Utah AHEC hosted at Southern Utah University (with office space at Dixie State University).
This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government.