A program of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Created to address the health care crises of the 1950s and 1960s, the NHSC supports health centers in rural, urban, and tribal communities to address a growing shortage in primary health care services and clinicians. The NHSC works to strengthen and grow the primary health care work force and to connect primary health care clinicians to people in the US with limited access to health care. (42 U.S.C. §§ 254d to 254k; 42 C.F.R. §§ 23.1 to 23.13.)