Role of the Dental Care Delivery System on Access to Dental Care

Dental workforce supply has a significant and central role in efforts to improve oral health care. Supply is frequently assessed by examining the ratio of dental care providers to the population. Dentist to population ratios are frequently based on the number of licensed dentist, which provide a rough estimated of the supply of providers at best. Better estimates of dental workforce supply should account for the factors that are correlated with capacity for providing care including, work characteristics, business characteristics, and practice patterns. Research on the role of dental provider characteristics on service provision is limited. This study provides evidence of the role of dentist characteristics on the population's access to care. Data from the 2003 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) and a 2003 representative survey of California dentists were merged at the MSSA level. The percentage of dentists in an area with specific characteristics per MSSA was merged with CHIS data. The findings confirm that the ratio of full-time equivalent dentist to 5,000 population increases the likelihood of a dental visit in the past year among adults, but not among children, in models adjusted for population indicators. In addition, the findings indicate that the higher percentage of female dentists and the lower percentage of dentists who report being busy or overworked in an MSSA are significantly associated with higher likelihood of a dental visit among adults, independent of population level indicators.