The impact of Hill-Burton: an analysis of hospital bed and physician distribution in the United States, 1950-1970

Med Care. 1980 May;18(5):532-50. doi: 10.1097/00005650-198005000-00006.

Abstract

The Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946, commonly known as the Hill-Burton Act, was intended to improve the supply, distribution and quality of general hospital beds across the United States. Some also saw the program as a means of affecting the supply and distribution of physicians. The strategy used here for evaluating the Hill-Burton program derives in part from the assumptions about health resources supplies on which Hill-Burton policy was found and in part from a model of socioeconomic convergence developed in public policy research on the American states. Major conclusions include 1) Hill-Burton had a major redistributive impact on state bed supplies; 2) physician redistribution lagged far behind progress in bed redistribution; and 3) interstate distribution of physicians appears to have been unaffected by Hill-Burton-associated bed redistribution, a finding contrary to other work in this area.

MeSH terms

  • Beds / supply & distribution*
  • Economics, Hospital*
  • Financing, Government*
  • Health Resources / trends
  • Humans
  • Legislation, Hospital
  • Physicians / supply & distribution*
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • United States
  • Urbanization / trends