The Registered Nurse Population 1980 – 2004
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PREFACE The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is the key Federal agency responsible for nursing workforce analysis and development in the United States. The Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr) within HRSA provides national leadership to assure an adequate supply and distribution of qualified nursing personnel to meet the health needs of the Nation. This responsibility includes examination of the supply, composition, and distribution of nurses on the national and State levels in order to assure an adequate supply of qualified nursing personnel against requirements. For several decades, the Division of Nursing (DN) had primary responsibility for the assessment and examination of the Nation’s nursing workforce. Since 2001, the analytical aspects of these efforts on the nursing workforce have resided in BHPr’s Evaluation and Analysis Branch (EAB). These activities of the EAB have included leadership and direction in the administration of the 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (NSSRN), the reporting of findings from the Survey, and analytic support in short- term and long-term assessments of both the supply of nurses in the workforce and the requirements for nurses in the workforce. In pursuing these analytical efforts on the nursing workforce, BHPr has worked with other agencies within the Federal Government, as well as with various State agencies and private nursing organizations, in the development of methods for the study and acquisition of data on the RN population. The NSSRN is the Nation’s most extensive and comprehensive source of statistics on all individuals with active registered nurse licenses to practice nursing in the United States whether or not they are employed in nursing. It provides information on the number of registered nurses, their educational background and practice specialty areas, their employment settings, position levels, job satisfaction and salaries. It also provides information on their geographic distribution and personal characteristics including gender, racial/ethnic background, age, and family status. The development of a design for collecting data through national sample surveys of registered nurses originated in July 1975 in a contract with Westat, Inc. Subsequently, reports for seven studies, conducted in September 1977, November 1980 and 1984, and March 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000 have been published and made available to people and organizations involved in health care planning and evaluation as well as to the public. This publication is the report of the eighth study, conducted in March 2004. The 2004 NSSRN benefited from a wide range of professional nurse associations and organizations with large or diverse memberships of individual RNs that endorsed the study and encouraged their members to participate in it. The organizations included the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American Nurses Association, American College of Nurse-Midwives, Asian American Pacific Islander Nursing Association, Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses, Association of Women’s Health Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, Emergency Nurses Association, National Alaska Native/American Indian Nurses Association, National Association of Hispanic Nurses, National Black Nurses Association, and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. The 2004 NSSRN survey application, including survey administration, data collection, and reporting, was carried out by The Gallup Organization through a contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), HRSA, and administered by the EAB. Under a subcontract with The Gallup Organization, Insight Policy Research, Inc. led the data analysis, sample design, and the development and writing of the final report. Funding for the 2004 NSSRN was provided by the Division of Nursing. EAB staff were responsible for overseeing the study (Dr. Christine Hager, Steve Tise, Louis A. Kuta, William Spencer, and Marshall Fritz). In addition, other HRSA staff including, Dr. Denise Geolot, Donna English, Dr. Annette Debisette, Dr. Joan Weiss, and other members of their staff in the Division of Nursing provided guidance on nursing education and practice during the review of the questionnaire drafts, the interpretation of the raw response data, and the preparation of i the Findings Report. Members of the Interagency Collaborative on Nursing Statistics (ICONS) also reviewed the questionnaire draft and offered suggestions prior to finalization. The report was authored by Darby Miller Steiger of the Gallup Organization and Sara Bausch, Bryan Johnson, and Dr. Anne Peterson of Insight Policy Research. Zac Arens of the Gallup Organization programmed and summarized the data into tables. HRSA’s BHPr is pleased to make this important information on the Nation’s RNs population available to the public through this report. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 1 EARLY REGISTERED NURSE WORKFORCE STUDIES .................................................................... 1 DEVELOPMENT OF NSSRN METHODOLOGY................................................................................... 2 THE 2004 NATIONAL SAMPLE SURVEY OF REGISTERED NURSES (NSSRN) ............................ 2 ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT....................................................................................................... 4 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 5 II. THE REGISTERED NURSE POPULATION 1980 – 2004............................................................... 7 REGISTERED NURSES IN THE U.S....................................................................................................... 7 EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION ........................................................................................................... 9 AGE .......................................................................................................................................................... 12 GENDER .................................................................................................................................................. 13 RACIAL/ETHNIC BACKGROUND....................................................................................................... 14 FAMILY STATUS................................................................................................................................... 17 EMPLOYMENT SETTINGS................................................................................................................... 17 LONG-TERM TRENDS IN AVERAGE SALARIES/EARNINGS........................................................ 20 III. THE REGISTERED NURSE POPULATION 2004 ....................................................................... 23 AGE .......................................................................................................................................................... 23 GENDER .................................................................................................................................................. 25 RACIAL/ETHNIC BACKGROUND....................................................................................................... 26 EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT PRIOR TO INITIAL NURSING EDUCATION ....................... 28 NURSING EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION....................................................................................... 29 ADVANCED PRACTICE NURSES ....................................................................................................... 32 Nurse Practitioners ............................................................................................................................... 33 Clinical Nurse Specialists..................................................................................................................... 34 Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Nurse Specialists .............................................................................. 35 Nurse Anesthetists................................................................................................................................ 35 Nurse Midwives ................................................................................................................................... 36 Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives ............................................................................................. 36 Non-White, Hispanic, or Latino Advanced Practice Nurses ................................................................ 37 REGISTERED NURSES IN THE WORKFORCE.................................................................................. 37 Characteristics within Employment Setting ......................................................................................... 39 Registered Nurses in Nursing Faculty Positions .................................................................................. 42 Base of Employment ............................................................................................................................ 43 Position Levels ..................................................................................................................................... 44 Functions During Usual Workweek ....................................................................................................