Free Tools for Mapping Healthcare Access Gaps (2026)

The main free tools for mapping healthcare access gaps in a CHNA are HRSA's HPSA Find, CDC PLACES, SparkMap and County Health Rankings. The AMA Health Workforce Mapper, WHO AccessMod and GeoChat AI add workforce, travel-time and supply-demand views.

Each entry below lists what the tool maps, its smallest geography, its cost as of November 2026, and one limitation. GeoChat AI publishes this page and appears here as one option among eight.

Comparison table

The tools

HRSA shortage-area and map tools (data.hrsa.gov)

HRSA's Health Workforce Shortage Areas page covers geographic, population and facility HPSAs for primary care, dental health and mental health. HPSA Find filters them by discipline, status, type, score and rural status. MUA Find searches Medically Underserved Areas and Populations (MUA/P) by state and county.

• Smallest geography: a single address. Find Shortage Area by Address checks one address; the batch tool checks up to 200.
• Cost: no fee is mentioned. HRSA says it gives the public "extensive and easy-to-access data," with downloads in XLSX, CSV and SHP.
• Best for: confirming HPSA status for grant applications and CHNA narratives.
• Other map tools: HRSA's featured tools also list Build Your Own Map, High Need Mapping Tool, Unmet Need Score Map Tool and GeoCare Navigator.
• Limitation: the Build Your Own Map page says it "is best suited for individuals without visual impairment." The page recommends HRSA's Data Portal for selecting datasets and building custom views.

CDC PLACES

PLACES is a free CDC tool with small-area estimates for counties, places, census tracts and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). The December 2025 release has 40 measures. They cover health outcomes, prevention practices, disabilities, risk behaviors and health-related social needs.

• Smallest geography: census tract and ZCTA, for areas with an adult population of 50 or more.
• Cost: free.
• Tools: an Interactive PLACES Map, a data portal and a comparison report for up to 3 counties or places.
• Best for: mapping chronic disease and prevention measures below the county level.
• Limitation: values are model-based estimates, not local survey counts. In the current release, 35 measures use 2023 BRFSS data and 5 carry over 2022 data. Kentucky and Pennsylvania lack estimates for the 2023-based measures.

SparkMap (CARES, University of Missouri)

SparkMap is a CARES product with a Map Room and Community Needs Assessment reports. Its pricing page lists 28,000+ ready-to-use map layers. The old chna.org address now redirects to a Community Commons CHNA overview.

• Smallest geography: single county on the free tier. ZIP-level reports are included in Premium annual plans; Enterprise ZIP and tract packages are priced separately.
• Cost: a free account gives "basic features" of the Map Room and needs assessment, with 100+ indicators and PDF export. Paid plans, as of November 2026:
• Intro: $179/year or $49/quarter, 100+ indicators, multi-county reports
• Pro: $999/year, 165+ indicators, Map Room data upload
• Premium: $4,999/year, 390+ indicators, custom-area reports, Word and Excel export
• Enterprise: custom quote
• Best for: a fast county indicator report with benchmarks to cite in a CHNA. It fits better than GeoChat AI when you need hundreds of ready-made indicators in a formatted report (comparison).
• Limitation: free reports cover a single county. SparkMap offers live demos but no paid-plan trials or discounts (FAQ).

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

CHR&R, a program of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI), gives a health snapshot of nearly every US county. In March 2026 it updated 34 measures, including adult obesity, diabetes prevalence and uninsured rates.

• Smallest geography: county.
• Cost: no fee is listed; the health data page offers dataset downloads and interactive maps.
• Best for: benchmarking your county against the state and finding evidence-informed strategies in What Works for Health.
• Status as of November 2026: CHR&R will not produce a 2026 Annual Data Release. Its Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding ends in December 2026.
• New funding: on October 20, 2026, UWPHI announced new multi-year funding. County-level data for every county and What Works for Health "will remain available and continue to be updated." UWPHI also said the funding "will not extend CHR&R as it exists today."
• Limitation: no sub-county data, so pair it with PLACES for tract-level detail.

AMA Health Workforce Mapper

The Health Workforce Mapper is a free AMA tool showing where physicians and non-physician professionals practice, by specialty and employment setting. It also maps hospitals, rural health clinics and patient health data such as morbidity and mortality rates.

• Smallest geography: the current page cites state, county and metro data. AMA's 2020 redesign announcement lists ZIP code and census tract levels, plus HPSAs for primary care, dental and behavioral health.
• Cost: free. AMA members get a fuller version with an Excel export ranking county workforce and demographic data.
• Best for: seeing physician supply by specialty next to shortage areas. It was built with the AAFP Robert Graham Center.
• Limitation: the county ranking export is limited to AMA members.

North Carolina Data Portal (state-specific)

The NC Data Portal comes from Region 4 NC Public Health and the NC Division of Public Health and is powered by CARES. Its community health assessment tool offers 120 indicators, and its Map Room has more than 30,000 layers.

• Smallest geography: the CHNA report tool shows county, ZIP code and census tract data, and lets you draw a custom area.
• Cost: no price is listed. The report tool marks some data as available to registered users or subscribers.
• Best for: NC health departments and hospitals. It supports NC-specific regions such as Medicaid, AHEC and health department regions.
• Limitation: it covers North Carolina only. Teams in other states can use SparkMap, another CARES product.

GeoChat AI

GeoChat AI is a free, AI-powered mapping platform for community health assessments, community needs assessments and healthcare supply-demand studies. It maps supply-demand gaps, provider deserts and population health patterns.

• How it works: you ask follow-up questions in a plain-language AI chat, drill into ZIP codes and compare regions. Nonprofit organizations can request new maps, and requests shape what gets added.
• Data: public, open data, including Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) population figures and the NPPES provider registry.
• Geography: drill into ZIP codes and compare regions.
• Cost: a free tier with no credit card required. Paid expert services cover expert review of AI findings, primary research and community interviews, custom needs assessment reports, methodology design and stakeholder presentation support.
• Use cases: CHNAs, personal care and home health, PACE, rural health, community health worker programs and workforce analysis.
• Limitation: provider counts are NPPES registrations, not full-time clinicians. The platform is new; the current version is GeoChat Atlas (version 2).

WHO AccessMod (international)

AccessMod is a WHO toolbox built "to assist countries to examine the geographic aspects of their health system." It models travel time to facilities, geographic coverage and referral times.

• Smallest geography: the raster cell of your input data. The accessibility analysis outputs travel time in minutes to the nearest facility, for walking, bicycling or motorized travel.
• Cost: free and open source under GNU GPL v3, plus a WHO terms-of-use agreement. Version 5.8 runs on Windows, Mac or Linux via VirtualBox or Docker.
• Best for: analysts with GIS skills who need modeled travel time to facilities (see drive-time access).
• Fit for US CHNAs: usable if your team can prepare the inputs. You supply a land cover raster and a facility layer, with travel speeds set per land cover class.
• Limitation: you must prepare GIS inputs (a land cover raster, a facility layer and, for slope-adjusted speeds, an elevation model) and run it in VirtualBox or Docker. Population coverage comes from its separate zonal statistics and geographic coverage analyses.

Paid tools that appear in the same searches

PolicyMap sells annual subscriptions for individuals, teams and enterprises at custom prices, with options for academics, government and nonprofits. Its community health page offers census tract and ZIP data and supports building CHNAs.

PolicyMap says its catalog spans millions of indicators from thousands of sources, licensed through one vendor, and its team hosts weekly training sessions. Its pricing page does not describe a free plan as of November 2026. See GeoChat AI vs PolicyMap.

Maptitude is GIS software priced at US$795 on Caliper's healthcare page as of November 2026. It builds territories by drive time or distance to look for service gaps, and offers a free trial.

How to choose

Match the tool to the task.

1. Finding shortage designations: start with HPSA Find and MUA Find. Use the address tools to check specific clinic or service sites.
2. Mapping chronic disease prevalence: use CDC PLACES for tract and ZCTA estimates. Add County Health Rankings for county benchmarks against the state.
3. Drive-time and provider access: use AccessMod if you have GIS staff and input data. Maptitude is the paid alternative. For physician supply by specialty, use the AMA Health Workforce Mapper. For supply-demand gaps by ZIP without GIS software, try GeoChat AI.
4. Producing a CHNA report: SparkMap's free tier gives a single-county PDF; paid tiers add multi-county and ZIP reports. In North Carolina, the NC Data Portal aims to be the primary secondary-data source for most local health departments.
5. Structuring the process: AHA's Community Health Assessment Toolkit is a nine-step guide and notes that CHNA reporting is mandatory for nonprofit hospitals. Build Healthy Places Network keeps a list of mapping tools for community development and health.

For step-by-step methods, see the CHNA access-gap mapping guide and the CHNA glossary entry.