How far do nurses go after graduation in North Carolina?

Examining the diffusion of nurses post-graduation in North Carolina.

How to Cite

To cite, please include the following: The Program on Health Workforce Research and Policy at the Cecil G Sheps Center. “NC Nursecast: A Supply and Demand Model for Nurses in North Carolina.” November 1, 2021. https://ncnursecast.unc.edu/diffusion/

North Carolina has over one hundred nursing programs. Some programs educate licensed practical nurses (LPNs) while others educate registered nurses (RNs) and award an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. Where do these nurses go after they have graduated and how do the patterns of diffusion differ between different types of programs and individual programs?

To help answer those questions, we used licensure data to determine where a nurse completed their first nursing degree for licensure and where they were working two years later. Then we put those origin and destination points on a map for each of North Carolina’s nursing programs. We drew an ellipse around those points to show the spatial distribution of approximately 2⁄3 of the graduates from each program, giving a general idea of the diffusion pattern of a school’s graduates.

If you’d like to learn more about how to use the graduate diffusion map, you can watch the video below. Or you can just keep scrolling and dive right in.


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Explore

Supply & Demand

Want to learn about the future supply and demand of our state's licensed practical nurses and registered nurses across settings and geographic regions?

See projections

Graduate Diffusion

Want to see how different North Carolina nursing programs impact the distribution of health professionals in their area and across the state?

Examine graduate diffusion

Key Findings

What are the main takeaways from the nursecast projections? In what regions and settings will nurses be in shortage?

Read key findings

Who are we?

This project is brought to you by The Cecil G. Sheps Center For Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina in partnership with the North Carolina Board of Nursing.