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Estimating the Number of Dentists Needed in 2040
Author(s) -
Eklund Stephen A.,
Bailit Howard L.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of dental education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.53
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1930-7837
pISSN - 0022-0337
DOI - 10.21815/jde.017.021
Subject(s) - incentive , investment (military) , medicine , production (economics) , population , business , economics , environmental health , political science , market economy , politics , law , macroeconomics
Numerous factors that underlie the need for dentists are undergoing significant changes. Three factors are especially important: 1) improvements in oral health; 2) lower expenditures per patient per year, giving dentists the incentive to treat more patients to maintain incomes that justify their investment in dental education and practice; and 3) dental schools’ producing new dentists at a faster rate than the growth in the population. If these trends continue, there is likely to be a dentist surplus of between 32% and 110% by 2040. A major challenge for dental schools is to adjust the production of dentists before 2040 and not wait for market forces to reduce the surplus. Whether there will be a painful market‐based solution to the problem, as there was in the 1980s, or whether a more orderly path can be found is one of the key challenges of the project “Advancing Dental Education in the 21 st Century,” for which this article was written.