Primary care is a central entry point to the health system, from routine checkups and preventive screening to long-term management of conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. In 2024, HRSA-funded health centers served 32,387,774 patients and delivered 139.4 million visits. National access measures also show that most adults had a usual source of care, although access differed by age and sex.
Contents
- Primary care access in 2024
- Who health centers served
- Patients by age
- Usual sources of care
- Visits and the role of primary care
- Prevention and chronic disease management
- International primary care context
Primary care access in 2024
Several measures describe access from slightly different angles. The CDC reported that 90.3% of adults had a source of usual health care in 2024. Separately, 88.6% of persons had a usual place to go for medical care in 2024, according to CDC FastStats: Access to Health Care. These measures are related, but they are not interchangeable: one refers to a source of usual care among adults, while the other covers persons and a usual place for medical care.
The CDC also reported that 85.2% of adults had visited a doctor or other health care professional in the past year in 2024. A recent visit is different from having an established source of care. Someone may have had a professional visit without having a regular place for ongoing care, while someone with a usual source may not have visited during the measurement period.
Access varied by sex and age. Women were more likely than men to have a source of usual health care: 93.3% of women compared with 87.1% of men in 2024. Adults ages 18 to 34 had the lowest listed age-group rate, at 83.7%, while 97.5% of adults age 65 and older had a source of usual care.
| Group or measure | 2024 percentage |
|---|---|
| Adults with a source of usual health care | 90.3% |
| Women with a source of usual health care | 93.3% |
| Men with a source of usual health care | 87.1% |
| Adults ages 18–34 with a source of usual health care | 83.7% |
| Adults age 65 and older with a source of usual health care | 97.5% |
| Adults with a doctor or professional visit in the past year | 85.2% |
Source labels: CDC NCHS Data Brief 558 and CDC FastStats: Physician office visits.
Who health centers served
HRSA-funded health centers served 32,387,774 patients in 2024, according to the HRSA 2024 National Health Center Data. The total included 13,799,638 male patients and 18,588,136 female patients. The reported patient counts describe people served by HRSA-funded health centers; they are not a count of every primary care patient in the United States.
The sex-specific totals place female patients at a larger share of the health center population than male patients. Because the supplied HRSA figures report counts rather than a stated percentage breakdown, the most direct comparison is the count itself: 4,788,498 more female than male patients were included in the 2024 total.
Health center activity also included a large volume of care. HRSA reported 139.4 million total visits in 2024 through its health center impact summary. Patients and visits are different measures: one person can account for more than one visit, so the visit total should not be read as a unique-patient count.
Patients by age
The HRSA 2024 National Health Center Data, Table 3A, reports patient counts for individual ages from under 1 through age 34. The youngest categories included 468,139 patients under age 1, 469,055 age 1 patients, 455,945 age 2 patients, 447,035 age 3 patients, and 491,085 age 4 patients.
Counts then rose to 535,066 at age 5 and 534,205 at age 6. The table recorded 527,007 patients age 7, 529,640 age 8, 528,935 age 9, 521,834 age 10, and 534,679 age 11. At age 12, the count was 558,331, followed by 542,418 at age 13 and 547,730 at age 14.
Among the older children and teenagers listed individually, the table recorded 560,691 patients age 15, 564,593 age 16, and 569,600 age 17. The age 18 count was 553,122, while age 19 totaled 571,909. These figures show the largest listed count in this portion of the table at age 19, although individual-age counts should not be treated as a trend in need or utilization without additional context.
The transition into the early twenties was lower in the reported counts. There were 528,505 patients age 20, 479,719 age 21, 461,754 age 22, 449,058 age 23, and 425,905 age 24. The count was 431,737 at age 25, 422,546 at age 26, and 422,475 at age 27.
Counts edged upward later in the twenties and early thirties: 431,385 patients were age 28, 434,113 were age 29, and 448,118 were age 30. The table listed 454,399 patients age 31, 467,347 age 32, 475,258 age 33, and 474,586 age 34.
Usual sources of care
The type of place adults used as their usual source of care also varied. In 2024, 77.5% of adults used a doctor’s office or health center. The corresponding figures were 82.2% for women and 72.6% for men. By age, 67.7% of adults ages 18 to 34 used a doctor’s office or health center as their usual source, compared with 88.8% of adults age 65 and older.
Other usual-care locations accounted for smaller shares. In 2024, 8.6% of adults used an urgent care center or a clinic in a drug store or grocery store as their usual source of care. A VA medical center or VA outpatient clinic was the usual source for 1.5% of adults, while 1.7% used a hospital emergency room as their usual source.
These categories describe the place identified as usual care, not the total number of visits to each setting. They also help distinguish continuity-oriented primary care locations from urgent, retail, veterans’ and emergency settings.
Source label: CDC NCHS Data Brief 558.
Visits and the role of primary care
The CDC reported that primary care physicians accounted for 50.3% of physician office visits in 2019, according to CDC FastStats: Physician office visits. This figure is measured in 2019, not 2024, so it should not be combined with the newer access and health center totals as though all measures came from the same year.
The 2024 HRSA health center total of 139.4 million visits provides a separate view of service volume. It covers health center activity and includes visits delivered across the health center program. Together, the figures indicate why the measurement frame matters: a physician-office share from 2019 and a health-center visit total from 2024 answer different questions.
The 2024 access measures add context to utilization. While 85.2% of adults had a doctor or professional visit in the past year, 90.3% had a source of usual health care. A usual source represents an ongoing access point, whereas a past-year visit represents contact during a defined period.
Prevention and chronic disease management
Health centers reported substantial preventive and chronic disease activity in 2024. HRSA’s Impact of the Health Center Program reported that almost 2.0 million patients were screened for breast cancer, over 4.4 million patients were screened for cervical cancer, and over 3.6 million patients were screened for colorectal cancer.
The same HRSA summary reported that health centers ensured over 3.6 million patients had controlled hypertension. They also helped more than 2.2 million patients control their diabetes. These are reported patient totals, not percentages of all health center patients, and the terms “almost,” “over,” and “more than” indicate rounded thresholds rather than exact counts.
The measures cover different kinds of primary care work. Cancer screening figures describe patients receiving particular preventive services. Hypertension and diabetes figures describe patients reported as having control of chronic conditions. They should not be added together because a patient may appear in more than one service category.
International primary care context
OECD data provide a broader comparison of primary care capacity and health outcomes. In OECD countries, primary care doctors represented 23% of all physicians on average in 2023, according to OECD: Primary healthcare. This is an average across OECD countries, not a U.S.-specific percentage.
The same OECD source reported that asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admission rates varied 10-fold across OECD countries in 2023. The variation is a cross-country comparison and does not identify a single cause. It should not be interpreted as a direct measure of primary care quality without additional information about populations, definitions and health systems.
More than one third of people age 16 and older in OECD countries reported living with a longstanding illness or health problem on average. This is a self-reported health-status measure and is distinct from the U.S. health center patient counts and chronic disease control totals.
The OECD reported 4.3 million doctors across OECD countries in 2021, up from 3.5 million in 2011. Doctors per 1,000 population rose from 3.2 in 2011 to 3.7 in 2021. These figures cover all doctors, not only primary care doctors, and use a different measurement period from the 2023 primary care share and the U.S. 2024 measures.
The overall picture is therefore layered: most adults reported a usual source of care in 2024; HRSA-funded health centers served more than 32 million patients and delivered 139.4 million visits; and health centers reported millions of screening and chronic disease management services. Age, sex, care setting, geography and measurement year all affect how these primary care statistics should be read.