About 50% of military installations in the U.S. are in areas with limited health care options, according to analysis from NPR.

“For hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and their families, when the Pentagon orders them to find health care off base there is none,” the NPR story said.

NPR found that one in three service members and their families live in what the federal government declares a federally designated health professional shortage area.

“Military members often don’t have a lot of control over where they’re stationed. Certainly their families don’t,” the National Military Family Association’s Eileen Huck said. “It’s incumbent on the military to make sure that when you send a family to a location, the support and resources are available to take care of them. And that obviously includes health care,” she says.

NPR graphic