New UDS Data Dropped. What Does It Mean for California’s Community Health Centers?

HRSA’s newly released 2025 Uniform Data System (UDS) data shows California’s health centers serving more patients, expanding their locations, and delivering a broader range of care. Since 2021, California’s federally qualified health center sites have grown nearly 20%, reaching 2,519 locations. Patient volume increased 12.6% to 5.9 million, outpacing national growth.

Our Business Development Manager, Adrienne Cooksey, reviewed the California trends report to explore what the findings mean for the health centers we work with and the communities they serve. What caught our attention was the combination: more locations, an aging patient population, expanding dental and vision services, and a shifting funding landscape.

Here’s how we’re reading it from a patient, construction, and development perspective.

For Patients: The Health Center Is Doing More

A checkup, a dental cleaning, and an eye exam can mean three appointments, three locations, and three requests for time off work. Health centers offering multiple services can help simplify that routine. The data shows those services are reaching a larger share of California patients: dental utilization rose from 18.8% in 2021 to 23.5% in 2025, while vision increased from 5% to 7%.

While the services and locations vary by health center, the trend points to more patients receiving dental and vision care through the health center system.

The patient population is changing, too. The number of patients age 65 and older increased 40.2%, more than three times the overall patient growth rate. For an older adult managing ongoing care, the experience includes transportation, navigating the facility, and sometimes bringing a caregiver along.

For Construction: The Room Count Is Only Part of the Story

A growing health center may need more exam rooms. It may also need a different allocation of space. Dental care requires operatories, sterilization areas, and specialized plumbing and electrical connections. Vision services introduce testing equipment, lighting requirements, and dedicated treatment areas. These departments have distinct workflows that need to function alongside primary care.

For us, that puts equipment coordination and building systems firmly in the early planning conversation. Understanding what will be installed, where it belongs, and how it will be used helps avoid changes once construction is underway.

The older adult trend also deserves attention when reviewing layouts. Space for mobility devices and caregivers, accessible restrooms, clear wayfinding, and convenient drop-off routes can influence how comfortably patients move through a visit. An existing clinic may have enough square footage overall, yet need a renovation to make that space work for its current services and patients.

For Development: Look Beyond the Statewide Growth Rate

California added 305 permanent health center sites between 2021 and 2025. Mobile and school-based settings also expanded, while permanent facilities remained the foundation of the system. That makes property selection, renovation potential, and long-term facility planning especially relevant. Site growth, however, does not mean every added location represents a newly constructed building.

From our development perspective, we want to know where demand is concentrated and what type of investment fits. Can an existing property accommodate dental equipment and additional utilities? Is there room to expand? Does the location work for the patients the organization intends to reach?

The increase in older adults also makes geriatric services and programs such as the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) worth evaluating. Statewide demographics provide a starting point. Local demand, program requirements, staffing, and financial feasibility determine whether a particular model makes sense.

For Health Centers: Growth Continues as Funding Shifts

One of the report’s most significant findings is that expansion has continued as funding sources shift. Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) grants to California health centers fell 32% from 2021 to 2025. The report notes that the sharp decline in total grant and contract revenue in 2024 coincided with the wind-down of COVID-era federal supplemental funding, followed by a partial recovery in 2025. State and local government grants increased approximately 75% between 2021 and 2025, although reported total grant and contract revenue remained below its 2021 level. These figures should be read with the report’s funding-data limitations in mind.

The report notes incomplete reporting in the underlying funding data, so these totals should be interpreted with that limitation in mind. They reflect organizational revenue, not available construction funding. For project planning, that makes confirming each health center’s funding sources and financing capacity an important early step.

For us, the value of this data is in the questions it brings to the table. Which services need more space? Where are patients facing barriers to access? Can an existing facility adapt, or is a new location needed? At Legacy Realty & Development and Legacy Construction, those questions help shape projects around the patients a health center serves and the care it plans to deliver next.