Scrubs could become an essential part of the wardrobe for millions more Americans as health care jobs grow across the country.
The aging U.S. population is rapidly increasing demand for many jobs in the health sector, which has become the fastest-growing part of the national economy. Although many medical jobs require advanced degrees—physicians, nurses, surgeons, etc.—the role growing fastest across most states is generally accessible to anyone with a high school diploma.
The job? Home health and personal care aides. The U.S. expects to add close to a million jobs in this profession over the next decade. These aides monitor and assist people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, including hospice. They often work in individuals’ homes or in group homes and day services programs. After COVID-19 devastated nursing homes, surveys have found fewer Americans are willing to live in them as they age. As a result, even more families may discover ways to use full-time or part-time in-home aides for end-of-life care.
An analysis including more than 70 other health care jobs projected all but three states to add home health and personal care aides in the highest numbers. In just three states—Colorado, Florida, and South Dakota—did registered nurse job growth outpace home health.
As a percentage of current jobs, roles seeing the most growth are slightly more varied. Most commonly, nurse practitioner jobs are growing the most among 40 of the 50 states and Washington D.C. In Arizona, for instance, the volume of nurse practitioner jobs is expected to grow 100.8% over the decade—in other words, jobs will double. Massage therapist jobs are increasing fastest in six states, with the most significant change in New York at 75% growth. These statistics provide insight into how jobs are changing relative to their current employment. However, they don’t shine as much light on which careers will offer the most job opportunities to future Americans.
To provide that insight to potential future health care workers across America, Medical Technology Schools identified the health care positions expected to add the most jobs in Florida from 2020 to 2030, as part of its broader national analysis. Occupations are ranked by the number of jobs to be added in that time frame, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by Projections Central. Initial ties were broken by the percent growth in jobs, though some ties may remain.
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#25. Occupational therapy assistants
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 1,210
– Percent growth in jobs: 37.7% (#5)
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#24. Surgical technologists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 1,400
– Percent growth in jobs: 17.6% (#31)
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#23. Occupational therapists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 1,410
– Percent growth in jobs: 19.9% (#29)
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#22. Family medicine physicians
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 1,520
– Percent growth in jobs: 16.3% (#35)
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#21. Diagnostic medical sonographers
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 1,600
– Percent growth in jobs: 27.8% (#15)
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#20. Psychiatric technicians
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 1,610
– Percent growth in jobs: 16.8% (#32)
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#19. Phlebotomists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 2,140
– Percent growth in jobs: 28.2% (#14)
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#18. Dentists, general
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 2,170
– Percent growth in jobs: 25.8% (#20)
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#17. Radiologic technologists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 2,390
– Percent growth in jobs: 16.2% (#36)
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#16. Respiratory therapists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 2,740
– Percent growth in jobs: 31.5% (#11)
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#15. Speech-language pathologists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 2,790
– Percent growth in jobs: 31.3% (#12)
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#14. Physical therapist assistants
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 3,060
– Percent growth in jobs: 42.3% (#3)
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#13. Physician assistants
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 3,480
– Percent growth in jobs: 46.2% (#2)
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#12. Physical therapists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 3,630
– Percent growth in jobs: 24.5% (#23)
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#11. Clinical laboratory technologists and technicians
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 3,740
– Percent growth in jobs: 16.7% (#33)
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#10. Dental hygienists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 3,850
– Percent growth in jobs: 32.3% (#8)
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#9. Massage therapists
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 4,120
– Percent growth in jobs: 39.7% (#4)
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#8. Pharmacy technicians
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 4,460
– Percent growth in jobs: 14.8% (#44)
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#7. Licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 4,750
– Percent growth in jobs: 11.4% (#51)
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#6. Dental assistants
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 6,630
– Percent growth in jobs: 31.7% (#10)
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#5. Nursing assistants
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 8,110
– Percent growth in jobs: 9.5% (#56)
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#4. Nurse practitioners
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 9,540
– Percent growth in jobs: 70.8% (#1)
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#3. Medical assistants
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 17,040
– Percent growth in jobs: 29.8% (#13)
Canva
#2. Home health and personal care aides
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 17,130
– Percent growth in jobs: 22.5% (#26)
Rawpixel.com // Shutterstock
#1. Registered nurses
– Projected jobs added, 2020-2030: 27,390
– Percent growth in jobs: 14.5% (#46)
This story features data reporting and writing by Paxtyn Merten and is part of a series utilizing data automation across 51 states.
This story originally appeared on Medical Technology Schools and was produced and
distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
Florida’s controversial surgeon general is drawing criticism for his handling of an elementary school’s measles outbreak, telling parents of unvaccinated children it is their choice whether their students attend class — a contravention of federal guidelines calling for their mandatory exclusion.
Dr. Joseph Ladapo, nationally known for his outspoken skepticism toward the COVID-19 vaccine, sent a letter this week to parents at Manatee Bay Elementary School near Fort Lauderdale after six students contracted the highly contagious and potentially deadly virus. Such outbreaks are rare in the United States, though reported cases have spiked from 58 for all of 2023 to 35 already this year.
The letter notes that when a school has a measles outbreak, it is “normally recommended” that unvaccinated students who haven’t previously had the disease be kept home for three weeks “because of the high likelihood” they will be infected.
But the letter then says the state won’t turn that recommendation into a mandate, at least for now. The Broward County school district said Friday that 33 of Manatee Bay’s 1,067 students don’t have at least one shot of the two-dose measles vaccine. The vaccine also covers mumps and rubella and is highly effective against measles even after one dose. The school is in Weston, an upper-middle class and wealthy suburb, with a median household annual income of more than $120,000.
“Due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, (the state health department) is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance,” Ladapo wrote. He was appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in September 2021 because of their mutual opposition to COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates and school closures.
His wording contradicts Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, which tell school officials that unvaccinated children “must be excluded” for three weeks. States are not required to follow those recommendations, however.
That failure to bar unvaccinated children is sparking criticism from doctors in Florida and around the country, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Rana Alissa, the academy’s Florida vice president, said Friday that the state should follow the CDC guidelines “for the safety of our kids.” Allowing unvaccinated children to attend during the outbreak not only endangers them, but others who might have compromised immune systems and could later catch it from them, she said.
“When you have an outbreak, to contain it you have to follow the public health and safety recommendations, not give people a choice,” she said. “Frankly, giving people a choice is what got us here.”
Jodie Guest, an epidemiologist at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, said the CDC’s guidelines “are based on decades of iterative science” but false information about the measles vaccine’s dangers is spreading. The vaccine in extremely rare circumstances can cause seizures that are not permanent or life-threatening, the CDC says.
“We have a pandemic of science disinformation,” she said.
Ladapo’s office did not respond Friday to a phone call seeking a response to the criticism.
The school district says any decisions about the mandatory exclusion of unvaccinated students rests solely with the health department. Spokesperson John Sullivan would not say if the six ill children are unvaccinated, citing privacy concerns.
Florida law requires that students be vaccinated for measles and several other contagious diseases, but they can be exempted by their doctor for medical reasons or by their parents if they affirm the shots conflict with the family’s “religious tenets and practices.” Officials are not allowed to seek specific information about those beliefs.
Measles spreads when infected people exhale, cough and sneeze the viruses — it can linger in the air and on surfaces for two hours, infecting numerous people. An infected person can be contagious for four days before symptoms appear, including the telltale rash, fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes.
Vaccinated people rarely catch the disease and if they do, their symptoms are less severe and they are less contagious, the CDC says.
Besides the unvaccinated students, those most at risk to the disease include infants who are too young for the shots; adults and children with compromised immune systems from such diseases as cancer and HIV; and pregnant women, whose fetuses might be adversely affected.
While most people who catch measles recover without significant problems, an unvaccinated person who catches measles has about a 20% chance of being hospitalized, the CDC says.
About 5% of infected children get pneumonia and about 1 in every 1,000 will develop brain swelling, which can cause deafness or intellectual disability. Between 1 and 3 of every 1,000 infected children who weren’t vaccinated will die from the disease, the CDC says.
Before measles vaccinations began in 1963, more than 400,000 Americans annually caught the disease. The numbers dropped dramatically to 47,000 cases in 1970 and 13,000 in 1980. After a bump to 27,000 in 1990, the number of reported infections in 2000 was less than 100.
But then there was a jump to 1,200 cases in 2019 before the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 caused the numbers to again fall.
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AP Public Health Reporter Devi Shastri in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A Central Florida school district is suing several social media companies, accusing them of creating a mental health crisis in children that the district now has to spend money to handle.
The Lake County School Board is suing the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok, Google and YouTube in federal court, accusing the companies of negligence, and intentional and reckless conduct.
The suit accuses the companies of knowing how their technology can be addictive but doing nothing to tamp down on how young people use their platforms. In fact, they accuse the companies of purposely exploiting that addictiveness for profit.
“America’s children are the social-media generation. Defendants recognized that, if they hook children, they will have them (on) their platforms for life. For example, Instagram’s marketing strategy document clarifies, ‘If we lose the teen foothold in the U.S., we lose the pipeline,’” the school board’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit filed this week.
The lawsuit says that because the companies exploited “children’s still-developing brains,” they have contributed to the country’s continuing mental health crisis, citing the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on how social media impact children’s mental health in 2023.
According to the lawsuit, the rate of children struggling with mental health issues parallels the rise in the amount of time they spend on social media platforms. The school district says it’s had to spend money on mental health services and other programs to help students and educate families about mental health and wellbeing, and it wants to recoup those funds.
According to Education Week, more than 200 school districts around the country are suing social media companies because of the mental health crisis.
In addition to that, state and federal governments have been looking at ways to restrict social media use for children under the age of 16.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon update its COVID-19 guidance to remove a recommended minimum five-day isolation period for those on the mend, according to The Washington Post.
The CDC’s current isolation guidance for COVID-19 calls for people who test positive yet show mild and improving symptoms to end isolation after five days if they’re fever-free for 24 hours without help from medication. That recommended isolation period was cut from 10 days to five in December 2021, about two years ago.
In a report citing anonymous CDC officials and an infectious-disease expert, the Post states COVID-positive people with mild and improving symptoms will be advised that they only have to go 24 hours without a fever — also barring the use of medication — before they can end isolation.
The Post made mention of how CDC officials in internal discussions acknowledged the vastly changed COVID-19 landscape, where a disease that’s killed nearly 1.2 million people in the U.S. is now something most Americans have developed a level of immunity to due to prior infection or vaccination.
“Public health has to be realistic,” said Michael T. Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota. “In making recommendations to the public today, we have to try to get the most out of what people are willing to do. (…) You can be absolutely right in the science and yet accomplish nothing because no one will listen to you.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will hold a news conference Wednesday morning at the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee.
The governor will be joined by first lady Casey DeSantis, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and Jason Weida, secretary at the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.
California cities and counties still don’t know how much they’ll have to pay for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic program to house homeless people in hotel rooms after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in October that it was limiting the number of days eligible for reimbursement.
State and local officials say they were stunned to learn via an October letter that FEMA would only pay to house homeless people at risk of catching COVID-19 for at most 20 days — as opposed to unlimited — starting June 11, 2021, which is when Gov. Gavin Newsom rescinded the sweeping stay-at-home order he issued in March 2020.
In response, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services requested that FEMA reconsider the policy change, saying that it would cost cities and counties at least $300 million at a time when budgets are tight and that local governments had relied on assurances that the federal government would pick up the cost.
Late Tuesday, FEMA said in a statement that it will review California’s Jan. 31 letter, but that all states had been provided “the same guidance and policy updates throughout the pandemic.”
Newsom announced the hotel housing program — called Project Roomkey — in March 2020 as part of the state’s response to the pandemic. Homeless advocates heralded it as a novel way to safeguard residents who could not stay at home to reduce virus transmission. FEMA agreed to pay 75% of the cost, later increasing that to full reimbursement.
California officials argued to the federal agency that no notice was provided on the policy change.
Robert J. Fenton, the regional administrator for California who wrote the October letter, told CalMatters, which was first to report on the discrepancy last week, that the policy was not new.
“What I’m doing is clarifying the original guidance of the original policy and providing that back to them,” he told the nonprofit news organization.
FEMA declined Tuesday to make Fenton available to The Associated Press for an interview.
Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for Cal OES, said earlier Tuesday that inaction by FEMA “would have a chilling effect on the future trust of local governments and the federal government” in times of crisis.
