Shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Use the drop-down menus to select measures or groups. The left graph shows the selected measure by subgroups of physicians within the selected group, and the right graph shows the selected measure among all physicians. Hover the mouse over a bar to see additional information about a specific estimate.

Technical Notes

• In Periods 3 and 4 of 2020 NAMCS, 422 out of 774 eligible physicians responded to the Physician Induction Interview, for a response rate of 54.5%. In periods 1 and 2 of 2021 NAMCS, 407 out of 851 eligible physicians responded, for a response rate of 47.8%. In periods 3 and 4 of the 2021 NAMCS, 337 out of 631 eligible physicians responded, for a response rate of 53.4%.
• No physicians were excluded from estimates due to missing data.
• Estimates are weighted and are nationally representative.
• Data represent physicians, not physician offices.
• Group estimates for 2021 P3 & P4 are not shown due to small sample sizes.
• All estimates shown were assessed against the NCHS Data Presentation Standards for Proportions. Estimates that did not meet these reliability standards are still shown but are displayed in an alternate color according to the legend in the dashboard.

Data Source

The preliminary data presented are from the National Center for Health Statistics’ 2020 and 2021 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) Physician Induction Interview. For general details on NAMCS, visit https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd/about_ahcd.htm, and for specific details about the NAMCS Physician Induction Interview, see below.

Definitions

Measures

Survey questions used to develop the measures displayed in the above dashboard include:

“During the past 3 months, how often did your office experience shortages of N95 masks or other approved face masks due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic?”

• Estimates show the percentage of physicians responding yes to this survey question, including a response of “some…,” “most…,” or “all of the time.”

“During the past 3 months, how often did your office experience shortages of eye protection, isolation gowns, or gloves due to the onset of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic?”

• Estimates show the percentage of physicians responding yes to this survey question, including a response of “some…,” “most…,” or “all of the time.”

The above two survey questions were used to derive the following measure shown in the above dashboard: “During the past 3 months, did your office experience any PPE shortages?”

• Estimates show the percentage of physicians responding yes to either the question about N95 mask shortages or the question about eye protection, gown, or glove shortages.

Groups

Measures are stratified by the following characteristics:

Office type:

• Solo Practice—Physicians responding that they work in a solo practice.
• Group Practice—Physicians responding that they work with other physicians, such as in a partnership or a group practice.

Owner type:

• Physician or physician group—Physicians responding that they work at an office owned by a physician or a physician group.
• Other—Physicians responding that they work at an office that is owned by an entity, such as an insurance company, health plan, hospital, health center, or other health care corporation.

Specialty type (as described in NCHS’ NAMCS documentation, pages 111-113):

• Primary care—Physicians responding that their specialty is primary care.
• Surgical—Physicians responding that their specialty is surgical.
• Medical—Physicians responding that their specialty is medical.

Urbanicity of office location (based on NCHS’ Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for Counties):

• Large metro area—Physicians’ offices in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with 1 million people or more.
• Medium/small metro area—Physicians’ offices in MSAs with less than 1 million people.
• Nonmetro area—Physician’s offices in micropolitan statistical areas (urban clusters with a population of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000) or noncore areas (everything else considered nonmicropolitan).

Survey Design and Sampling

NAMCS is an annual survey of 3,000 physicians working in nonfederally employed, office-based settings in the 50 U.S. states or Washington, D.C., sampled from the American Medical Association and the American Osteopathic Association master files. Physicians working in specialties of anesthesiology, radiology, or pathology are not eligible to be sampled. Sampled physicians who had retired or were aged 85 or over; were a resident, intern, or fellow; were not principally engaged in patient care activities at the time of the interview; could not be contacted; or were not providing care in an office-based setting were not eligible to complete NAMCS.

NAMCS consists of two parts: 1) a Physician Induction Interview with eligible responding physicians, and 2) an abstraction of patient visits from those physicians. To provide representative data from across a survey year, the physician sample is divided into 52 subsamples, which are then randomly assigned to the 52 weeks of the survey year. These weekly subsamples are also grouped into four interview periods, with about 750 physicians in each period. Physicians are contacted to complete the Physician Induction Interview within a specific date range for their interview period, and then provide a sample of visits for abstraction from the reporting week to which they were assigned. Details regarding interview and reporting periods for the 2020 and 2021 NAMCS are shown below in the Table.

COVID-19-related questions were first introduced in the third interview period of the 2020 NAMCS Physician Induction Interview and were also asked of physicians in the 2021 survey. Because of COVID-19, data collection was delayed and some of the interview dates for the 2020 NAMCS Physician Induction Interview occurred in 2021. Additionally, due to safety concerns and logistical challenges related to COVID-19, data abstraction was cancelled for Periods 2, 3, and 4 of the 2020 NAMCS and all of the 2021 NAMCS.

Survey Weighting

Physicians were weighted according to their specialty and region. Weights were adjusted using multipurpose iterative proportional fitting, a technique that simultaneously performs calibration, nonresponse adjustment, and weight trimming. Records from periods 3 and 4 of 2020 were combined, records from periods 1 and 2 of 2021 were combined, and records from periods 3 and 4 of 2021 were combined to produce three sets of preliminary weights for this visualization, allowing for the development of nationally representative estimates of PPE shortages for subsets of the 2020 and 2021 annual physician samples. Estimates on this page are being published prior to final weighting to provide timely access to COVID-19 information.

Suggested Citation

National Center for Health Statistics. 2020–2021 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Physician Induction Interview. Personal protective equipment shortages experienced by office-based physicians due to COVID-19: United States. Generated interactively: .

Send comments and questions to ambcare@cdc.gov.