Factors Influencing Physician Location Decisions in Oklahoma

Abstract

Research into the factors attracting physicians to practice in a given community has increased in volume in recent years. This interest is the result of a growing awareness of a number of things. Some are: (1) the importance of health in determining an individual's ability to function on a day to- day basis; (2) the key role played by the physician in any individual's access to basic medical services; (3) the lack of access to basic medical services suffered by an ever increasing portion of the population as the result of the concentration of physicians in large urban centers. This study was the result of an attempt to re-examine the factors influencing the location decisions of physicians from a slightly different standpoint. Its objectives were: (1) to determine those factors which attract a physician to a given community; (2) to determine whether or not the factors which attract a physician to a community differ with the type of physician; (3) to examine the policy implications of the results for the study area, Oklahoma, and other states with similar distributions of physicians.