U.S. Paramedic Education Access Dashboard

CAAHEP/CoAEMSP Accredited Programs + Satellite Sites • USDA ERS Rural Indicators • Census 2020

Main campus

Satellite site (est.)

SEARCH BY STATE & COUNTY

National Overview

678

Accredited Programs

201

Satellite Sites

879

Total Training Locations

56.4%

Offer Associate Degree

1.7%

Offer Bachelor's Degree

4.7

Counties per Program

Education Desert Analysis (Drive-Time)

Weighted by people, not land: the tiers further down measure share of land area. Measured instead from where people actually live (2020 Census center of population, by county), most Americans are close to a program — but roughly 1 in 22 (about 15 million) still live more than an hour from paramedic training.

14.7M

People >1 hr from a program (4.5% of CONUS)

2.1M

People >2 hr from a program (0.6%)

20.3%

People >25 min from a program

1 in 22

Americans >1 hr from paramedic training

Population measured by exact drive distance (straight-line ×1.35 road factor at 55 mph) from each county's 2020 Census center of population to the nearest of 879 locations — not its geographic center, which would overstate large desert counties like Riverside and San Bernardino. The land-area tiers below sample a 0.5° CONUS grid instead.

By Land Area

Methodology: Based on all 879 training locations (678 main campuses + 201 satellite sites). Aligned with NIH ambulance desert framework (Hsia et al.). Haversine distance with 1.35× road factor at 55 mph average speed.

54.9%

CONUS land >1hr from any training location

23.5%

CONUS land >2hr from any training location

67.2%

National (incl. AK/HI) >1hr

43.8%

National (incl. AK/HI) >2hr

TIER 1Ambulance Desert Equivalent (>25 min): 87.1% of CONUS

TIER 21-Hour Commute Barrier (>60 min): 54.9% of CONUS

TIER 3Education Desert (>2hr): 23.5% of CONUS

Alaska: 97.4% of land exceeds 2 hours from either of the state's 2 programs (Soldotna, Fairbanks). Hawaii: 3 training locations across the islands; 11.8% exceeds 2 hours. Including AK/HI raises the national Tier 3 figure from 23.5% to 43.8%.

Where a New Program Would Help Most

The largest populations whose community center sits more than an hour from any accredited program — the highest-impact candidates for a new campus or satellite site.

Stanislaus (Modesto), CA

Metro · 14% poverty

553k

~61 min

Anchorage, AK

Metro · 10% poverty

291k

~98 min

Merced, CA

Metro · 22% poverty

281k

~87 min

Montgomery, AL

Metro · 22% poverty

229k

~81 min

Broome (Binghamton), NY

Metro · 14% poverty

199k

~67 min

Tippecanoe (Lafayette), IN

Metro · 18% poverty

186k

~61 min

Shasta (Redding), CA

Metro · 14% poverty

182k

~85 min

Shawnee (Topeka), KS

Metro · 15% poverty

179k

~76 min

Centre (State College), PA

Metro · 15% poverty

158k

~74 min

Coconino (Flagstaff), AZ

Metro · 17% poverty

145k

~109 min

Wichita (Wichita Falls), TX

Metro · 15% poverty

129k

~69 min

Tom Green (San Angelo), TX

Metro · 13% poverty

120k

~72 min

Ranked by population whose 2020 Census center of population is more than 60 minutes' drive (exact straight-line distance ×1.35 at 55 mph) from the nearest of 879 locations. County-level; a program's real catchment depends on local roads and clinical-site availability.

Degree Availability

49 states have at least one associate-degree paramedic program (Vermont is the exception). But only 11 states offer bachelor's-level paramedic education: IL, KY, MA, MD, MO, NC, NE, NM, UT, VA, and WA.

In OH, MA, CT, and PA, fewer than 25% of programs offer any degree pathway beyond a certificate.

Degree percentages are based on the 658 programs with a specified degree type; 20 programs with unspecified degree type are excluded from the denominator.

Programs by Accreditation Year

USDA Rural-Urban Classification (ERS)

3,221 counties • Rural-Urban Continuum Codes 2013

1,985

Nonmetro Counties (61.6%)

46.1M

Nonmetro Population

78% of persistent poverty counties (302 of 386) are nonmetro. These same communities have $14,500 lower median household income than metro areas and face the longest drive times to paramedic education.

Population loss: 438 of 529 counties losing population are nonmetro. As EMS volunteers age out, these communities have no local pipeline to train replacements.

Most Rural States (% Nonmetro Counties)

Worst Access: Population per Program

Education Deserts (Avg Coverage Radius)

Associate Degree Availability

Counties per Program (Census 2020)

Methodology & Data Notes

Training Locations: 678 CAAHEP/CoAEMSP accredited paramedic programs + 201 satellite sites = 879 total training locations, reconciled against the CAAHEP accredited-program database (deduplicated to unique programs; credential-split records merged, one international listing excluded). Satellite sites are fully operational, publicly accessible training locations—their “satellite” designation is administrative (accreditation housed under a parent program), not a limitation on student access. All analysis uses all 879 locations by default.

Spatial Analysis: Haversine distance with cKDTree nearest-neighbor. Road correction factor: 1.35×. Average road speed: 55 mph. CONUS grid: 0.5° resolution, 3,355 land-filtered points.

⚠ Satellite Site Locations: CAAHEP’s API provides only city and state for satellite sites—no street addresses or coordinates. Satellite locations shown on this map are estimated to city centroid. This is sufficient for county-level and regional access analysis but is not suitable for exact routing or sub-city distance calculations. Typical precision: ~1–5 miles.

Three-Tier Access Framework (CONUS grid, % of land area):

Metric	All 879 Sites	Main Only (678)	Satellite Impact
Tier 1: >25 min	87.1%	88.9%	−1.8pp
Tier 2: >1 hr	54.9%	59.4%	−4.5pp
Tier 3: >2 hr	23.5%	26.6%	−3.1pp

Satellite sites reduce Tier 2 deserts by 4.5 percentage points.

Population-Weighted Access: The tiers above describe land, not people. Measuring the exact drive time from each county’s 2020 Census center of population (the point where its residents actually cluster, rather than its geographic center) to the nearest of the 879 locations, 4.5% of the CONUS population (~14.7 million people) lives more than one hour from a training location and 0.6% (~2.1 million) more than two hours — versus 54.9% and 23.5% of land area, better than an order-of-magnitude difference. Using the geographic centroid instead would wrongly count large low-density counties (Riverside, San Bernardino, Pima) as underserved when their populations sit near programs. County-level; census-tract geography would refine it further.

Rural Classification: USDA ERS Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (2013). Metro = RUCC 1–3. Nonmetro = RUCC 4–9. Rural/Frontier = RUCC 7–9. Persistent Poverty = 20%+ poverty rate across four Census periods (1980–2011).

Data Sources: CAAHEP/CoAEMSP API (March 2026), USDA ERS Rural Atlas (2024), Census ACS 5-Year, Ball et al. (2023) JACEP Open, Moungey et al. (2022) PEC.