ABSTRACT

This paper will begin by covering the supply and demand of the dental healthcare delivery,

as well as the distribution of dental facilities. Will also touch on the international

INTRODUCTION

In the field of healthcare, the professions most closely associated with it are general

doctors, and pharmacies. What comes after that? Most would think dentists, although it is

something that a lot of the population neglects or overlooks dental health. Therefore, one

can imagine that there won’t be as many dental service locations as there are hospitals or

pharmacies.

DENTAL PROFESSION EDUCATION & JOB PROJECTION

Furthermore, when the data available is assessed, it is clear that a majority of dental

facilities seem to be around metropolitan areas and not as much in rural areas (Datausa.io,

2017 ). Dental facilities stand to make more in larger populated areas due to the volume of

patients, as well as a lot of the population having dental insurance, so dentists as

professions are more inclined to set up their practice in metropolitan locations. However,

there is a good job growth projection in the dental profession of 19.1% versus the national

average job growth of 7.4% (Datausa.io, 2017). With this kind of growth, there is the

expectation that metropolitan locations may become saturated with dentists and we could

expect a spillover into the rural regions of the United States. In order to aid and speed up

this development, there are government programs that help incentivize dentists to start up

dental facilities in rural areas by offering cash bonuses as well as loan repayments, which is

an enticing offer, seeing as dental school loans can be as high as $500,000 (DDS. Ankur

Patel).

There is data that shows that a lot of the population currently receive care from

dental health systems, as well as there being a large void in the population which do not

utilize these services. As of 2017 there are 198,517 dentists that are utilizing their degree

and are practicing in their field (ada.org, 2018). This means that there are 61.0 dentists per

100,000 people in the United States, of which 20.9 percent are specialists (ada.org, 2018).
The average age of retirement of a dentist is approximately 68.9, this shows that they

generally do work as long as they can in order to serve the population (ada.org, 2018). This

is a little snapshot of what the demographic of dentists looks like in the United States. As you

can see there are not that many compared to the size of the population. From this population

studies show that 52.3 percent of adults’ report that they go to their dentist every 6 months,

which is less than the amount of doctor visits per 6 months (ada.org, 2018).

Continuing, there are 15.4 percent of the adult population that say they go to their

dentist once a year, and even further, 11 percent that admit they go to a dentist once every

2-3 years (ada.org, 2018). As well as 21.3 percent of the population that has not seen a

dentist in years (ada.org, 2018). This is quite alarming, there should be a higher demand, as

people should care for their dental health. The statistics for the demand of children’s dental

care is slightly better. 64.6 percent of parents say that they take their child to the dentist

once every 6 months, and 20.3 percent say that they take their child once every year

(ada.org, 2018). Continuing with these statistics, only 4.4 percent of parents say that they

take their child to the dentist once every 2-3 years, and 10.7 percent of parents admit that

they have not taken their child to the dentist in years (ada.org, 2018). That is a picture of the

supply and demand of the dental health care sector, there is healthy demand, but could be

better. The supply of dental health care locations and professionals needs to be increased to

be able to further serve the population. It can be inferred that as parents, they wish to make

sure that their children are healthy, therefore they make sure that they take them, but often

do not think of their dental health until there is something bothering them when they are of

an older age. Research done by the American Dental Association ran some studies that

found the reason as to why adults do not go to a dentist, here is the data that followed. 59

percent said that it was too expensive for them, as insurance does not always cover all

dental services and procedures (ada.org, 2018). 22 percent said that they feared visits to

dentist, as this can be more of a traumatic experience versus visiting a doctor (ada.org,

2018). 19 percent of them said that they simply were not able to find a convenient location or

time to go see a dentist (ada.org, 2018). With all this data we can see what changes need to
be made in the dental health care setting. As for the 59 percent that site cost as their issue,

that is a larger issue, but for the 22 percent that say they fear the dentist, and 19 percent

that say they are not able to find a good location and time, there are solutions to that. As for

the fear, dental services need to market material and the need for good dental health to lead

healthy and long lives. A dentist needs to be able to explore a patient's’ mouth, whether it is

with their fingers or tools, it is necessary. People need to be aware that the dentist is a highly

trained professional, just as a medical doctor, and that it is completely safe and nothing to

fear. Rather that they should fear what could occur if they do not visit a dentist. The other 19

percent have a very valid issue that needs to be answered by dental health services. As

mentioned earlier, there is a high concentration of dental services in more urban and

populated areas, which makes is difficult for those who like in rural type of areas. Another

issue is that with all the loans that come with the education needed, dentists would much

rather set up a dental office in a wealthier area where the population is more willing to spend

money on their health. Which then leaves a void for less fortunate areas, even if it is highly

populated.

There are these issues in the United States, but the issues are even more magnified

internationally. There is a large need for dental health care in less fortunate areas of the

world (jdentaled.org, 2017). There are a few ways that this is being combated, one of which

is the establishment of the “Consortium of Universities for Global Health”. They help get

dental students receive further training in underprivileged countries, places where they can

really see the effect of their training and education, and what kind of effect they can have on

their patients (jdentaled.org, 2017). The consortium also set up what is called “voluntourism”

which is a term that stand for volunteering globally, where the primary benefit is that the

person gets to see/tour a new country in the process of helping others. There are also dental

school programs such as the one at University of Illinois Chicago where there are post-

graduation mission trips and there is a trip to Guatemala in the fourth year of the program, if

the dental student wishes to go. There are also other organizations such as the International

service learning organization. They help to set up trips for dentists to serve in various
locations (islonline.org, 2018). These organizations and programs go a long way to helping

less fortunate areas of the world, and underdeveloped countries. There is still a lot of work to

be done to get dental health care out to these places permanently.

There are countries that are trying harder to increase dental health care in their

countries. Our population here in the United States seem to care the most about dental

health, whereas other countries did not prioritize this. However, recently the President of

China has made it clear at the National Health and Wellness Conference that health is a

prerequisite for people’s all-around development. Also, that it is a precondition for the

sustainable development of China (Nature.com, 2018). By this he is essentially saying that if

the population does not look after their own health, then we as a civilization will not be able

to further develop. Slowly there are other countries that are slowly starting to increase this

awareness like China is. India, Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are all

taking small marketing steps to increase the awareness of the need of dental health care to

their populations. The next step would be to make sure that there are highly trained dentists

that are working in those nations to be sure that the best care is delivered in order to gain

the trust of the public and get them on board and starting to do more to take care of their

dental health.
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