Summary
Blackeconomics.com estimates there are 75,000 Black Physicians in the United States in 2024. This is about 6.7% of the total physicians in the United States.
As far as we know, this is the first data set of fully sourced, Black Physician employment data available to the public in one place.
Our 2024 estimate comes from four sources: CPS, American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), and North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS).
We believe the US census gives the best data on the race and ethnicity of physicians, while the AAMC and FSMB provide the best estimate of the total number of doctors. The NAICS is very broad. The NAICS captures everything. We use an average of the US census racial breakdown of Back doctors and apply it to an average of the total doctor population from the AAMC, FSMB and NAICS estimates of total doctors.
Black Doctor Data Discussion
We want to spend a moment discussing the actual data, because it is so important and so hard to come by. There is a lot of work in this simple chart.
The first source is the Negro Yearbook (NYB), the American Association of Medical Schools (AAMS), the US census (10-year census), and the Current Population Survey (CPS) of occupational data. But it is also cross-referenced with other sources and studies.
The negro yearbook was used for data points between 1890 and 1940. The decennial census was used for data between 1940 to 1970. And the CPS has produced estimates since 1972. The AAMS has produced recent estimates.
The chart has few data points between 1890 and 1970, but then gets more accurate after 1972. Between 1972 and 1981, we estimated the number of Black doctors at about 3%. A detailed note in a separate post explains the sources and our methodology for constructing the data series.
The earlier data comes from Monroe Work’s Negro yearbook. The NYB covers the years from 1890 to 1942. But it reports every 10 years, and it reuses previously collected data.
Between 1940 and 1970, we used the 10-year (decennial) census.
In 1981, the US census broke out Black physicians as a separate category. However, the category is called “Black and all others,” hiding Hispanic, Asian, and immigrant doctors. The number of Asian and Hispanic doctors greatly increased after the immigration reform act of 1968. In 1982, the Census added the Hispanic category. Finally, in 2002 they added Asian doctors. So, the data gets more accurate from 2002 onward.
Black Doctors in the United States — detailed discussion
Determining the actual number of Black Doctors in the United States is difficult because the data is not up to date, US census categories change, and the data comes from many different sources. However, since this is an economics blog, we are going to give our best four estimates and see if they correlate.
Again, we estimate there are 75,000 Black Physicians in the United States in 2024.
Here are our estimates:
We believe the US census data is the most accurate with regard to race and ethnicity. There are about 68,000 Black physicians in 2024, according to the US Census of Occupational Employment in 2024. (CPS – US Census) (2024). We added together the total number of doctors (Other physicians, surgeons, and radiologists) and then adjusted for black employment rates for each category.
We want to note that the strict categories the census uses for sampling may miss a number of doctors. So, we judge the census total doctor number as slightly low.
We use the census data to calculate the average of employment for all Black doctors (8.25%) in 2024 based on employment data from 2019-2024. Note: 8.25% may be high given historical rates.
A second source is the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC). This source is widely used in the media. According to a 2024 report using 2023 data, they estimate there were 1,010,892 active physicians. However, they also reported a small number of Black physicians: 5.37% (three-year average). That calculates to 52,776 Black Doctors. However, the percentage of Black doctors is low compared to the census.
You can get a better estimate if you apply the census Black doctor rate from the census to the total number of doctors from AAMS to get the number of Black Doctors. That method calculates to 83,399 Black doctors. We judge this number to be high.
The third source is the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB)
The FSMB uses physician licensing data to report the number of doctors in the US. They report an 8-year average (2018-2024, every two years) of 1,032,681 doctors. Using the US Census Bureau’s average Black doctor rate (8.25%), that equates to 85,196 Black doctors. We judge the FSMB estimate as high.
A fourth source of data is the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), May 2024, which breaks down employment by job classification. They do not report race. NAICS reports a total of 1,199,660 doctors across 19 categories, including Physicians (29-1210) and Physicians, All Other (29-1229). Again, using the US census Black doctor rate, we compute 98,972 Black doctors in 2024.
We judge the NAICS estimate as high.
How we made the estimate
| Source | Total Doctors | Reported % | % used | Total Black Doctors |
| CPS | 1,030,000 | 8.25% | 8.25% | 84,975 |
| AAMC | 983,404 | 5.37% | 5.37% | 52,776 |
| FSMB | 1,032,681 | 8.25% | 85,196 | |
| NAICS | 1,199,660 | 8.25% | 98,972 | |
| Average | 80,480 |
Summary
The actual number of African American physicians is an open topic. We have looked at four estimates, one low and three high. Our best estimate is that there are about 75,000 Black doctors in the United States, including many who don’t directly practice in medical fields.
We believe the real number of Black doctors is somewhere above the census estimates, but below the estimates of AAMC, FSMB, and NAICS. So, we are going to settle on the approximate number of Black doctors as 75,000.
The exact number is important, but so are the sources of data and the trends. The reason for the estimate is to watch the growth trends. We also want to have a base number to use for other estimates and further calculations, such as Black physician income.
Going forward, we will use this estimate of 75,000 Black doctors in 2024 as our baseline until we get more accurate data that helps us revise our estimates.