BACKGROUND: Oral diseases affect most of the global population. The aim of this paper was to provide a contemporary analysis of 'human resources for oral health' (HROH) by examining the size and distribution of the dental workforce according to World Health Organization (WHO) region and in the most populous countries. METHOD: Publically available data on HROH and population size were sourced from the WHO, Central Intelligence Agency, United Nations, World Bank and the UK registration body. Population-to-dentist and dental-workforce ratios were calculated according to WHO region and for the 25 most populous countries globally. Workforce trends over time were examined for one high-income country, the UK. RESULTS: The majority of the world's 1.6 million dentists are based in Europe and the Americas, such that 69% of the world's dentists serve 27% of the global population. Africa has only 1% of the global workforce and thus there are marked inequalities in access to dental personnel, as demonstrated by population to dental-workforce ratios. Gaps exist in dental-workforce data, most notably relating to mid-level clinical providers, such as dental hygienists and therapists, and HROH data are not regularly updated. Workforce expansion and migration may result in rapid changes in dentist numbers. CONCLUSION: Marked inequalities in the distribution of global HROH exist between regions and countries, with inequalities most apparent in areas of high population growth. Detailed contemporary data on all groups of HROH are required to inform global workforce reform in support of addressing population oral health needs.
BACKGROUND: Oral diseases affect most of the global population. The aim of this paper was to provide a contemporary analysis of 'human resources for oral health' (HROH) by examining the size and distribution of the dental workforce according to World Health Organization (WHO) region and in the most populous countries. METHOD: Publically available data on HROH and population size were sourced from the WHO, Central Intelligence Agency, United Nations, World Bank and the UK registration body. Population-to-dentist and dental-workforce ratios were calculated according to WHO region and for the 25 most populous countries globally. Workforce trends over time were examined for one high-income country, the UK. RESULTS: The majority of the world's 1.6 million dentists are based in Europe and the Americas, such that 69% of the world's dentists serve 27% of the global population. Africa has only 1% of the global workforce and thus there are marked inequalities in access to dental personnel, as demonstrated by population to dental-workforce ratios. Gaps exist in dental-workforce data, most notably relating to mid-level clinical providers, such as dental hygienists and therapists, and HROH data are not regularly updated. Workforce expansion and migration may result in rapid changes in dentist numbers. CONCLUSION: Marked inequalities in the distribution of global HROH exist between regions and countries, with inequalities most apparent in areas of high population growth. Detailed contemporary data on all groups of HROH are required to inform global workforce reform in support of addressing population oral health needs.
Authors: Christopher J L Murray; Theo Vos; Rafael Lozano; Mohsen Naghavi; Abraham D Flaxman; Catherine Michaud; Majid Ezzati; Kenji Shibuya; Joshua A Salomon; Safa Abdalla; Victor Aboyans; Jerry Abraham; Ilana Ackerman; Rakesh Aggarwal; Stephanie Y Ahn; Mohammed K Ali; Miriam Alvarado; H Ross Anderson; Laurie M Anderson; Kathryn G Andrews; Charles Atkinson; Larry M Baddour; Adil N Bahalim; Suzanne Barker-Collo; Lope H Barrero; David H Bartels; Maria-Gloria Basáñez; Amanda Baxter; Michelle L Bell; Emelia J Benjamin; Derrick Bennett; Eduardo Bernabé; Kavi Bhalla; Bishal Bhandari; Boris Bikbov; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Gretchen Birbeck; James A Black; Hannah Blencowe; Jed D Blore; Fiona Blyth; Ian Bolliger; Audrey Bonaventure; Soufiane Boufous; Rupert Bourne; Michel Boussinesq; Tasanee Braithwaite; Carol Brayne; Lisa Bridgett; Simon Brooker; Peter Brooks; Traolach S Brugha; Claire Bryan-Hancock; Chiara Bucello; Rachelle Buchbinder; Geoffrey Buckle; Christine M Budke; Michael Burch; Peter Burney; Roy Burstein; Bianca Calabria; Benjamin Campbell; Charles E Canter; Hélène Carabin; Jonathan Carapetis; Loreto Carmona; Claudia Cella; Fiona Charlson; Honglei Chen; Andrew Tai-Ann Cheng; David Chou; Sumeet S Chugh; Luc E Coffeng; Steven D Colan; Samantha Colquhoun; K Ellicott Colson; John Condon; Myles D Connor; Leslie T Cooper; Matthew Corriere; Monica Cortinovis; Karen Courville de Vaccaro; William Couser; Benjamin C Cowie; Michael H Criqui; Marita Cross; Kaustubh C Dabhadkar; Manu Dahiya; Nabila Dahodwala; James Damsere-Derry; Goodarz Danaei; Adrian Davis; Diego De Leo; Louisa Degenhardt; Robert Dellavalle; Allyne Delossantos; Julie Denenberg; Sarah Derrett; Don C Des Jarlais; Samath D Dharmaratne; Mukesh Dherani; Cesar Diaz-Torne; Helen Dolk; E Ray Dorsey; Tim Driscoll; Herbert Duber; Beth Ebel; Karen Edmond; Alexis Elbaz; Suad Eltahir Ali; Holly Erskine; Patricia J Erwin; Patricia Espindola; Stalin E Ewoigbokhan; Farshad Farzadfar; Valery Feigin; David T Felson; Alize Ferrari; Cleusa P Ferri; Eric M Fèvre; Mariel M Finucane; Seth Flaxman; Louise Flood; Kyle Foreman; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Francis Gerry R Fowkes; Marlene Fransen; Michael K Freeman; Belinda J Gabbe; Sherine E Gabriel; Emmanuela Gakidou; Hammad A Ganatra; Bianca Garcia; Flavio Gaspari; Richard F Gillum; Gerhard Gmel; Diego Gonzalez-Medina; Richard Gosselin; Rebecca Grainger; Bridget Grant; Justina Groeger; Francis Guillemin; David Gunnell; Ramyani Gupta; Juanita Haagsma; Holly Hagan; Yara A Halasa; Wayne Hall; Diana Haring; Josep Maria Haro; James E Harrison; Rasmus Havmoeller; Roderick J Hay; Hideki Higashi; Catherine Hill; Bruno Hoen; Howard Hoffman; Peter J Hotez; Damian Hoy; John J Huang; Sydney E Ibeanusi; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Spencer L James; Deborah Jarvis; Rashmi Jasrasaria; Sudha Jayaraman; Nicole Johns; Jost B Jonas; Ganesan Karthikeyan; Nicholas Kassebaum; Norito Kawakami; Andre Keren; Jon-Paul Khoo; Charles H King; Lisa Marie Knowlton; Olive Kobusingye; Adofo Koranteng; Rita Krishnamurthi; Francine Laden; Ratilal Lalloo; Laura L Laslett; Tim Lathlean; Janet L Leasher; Yong Yi Lee; James Leigh; Daphna Levinson; Stephen S Lim; Elizabeth Limb; John Kent Lin; Michael Lipnick; Steven E Lipshultz; Wei Liu; Maria Loane; Summer Lockett Ohno; Ronan Lyons; Jacqueline Mabweijano; Michael F MacIntyre; Reza Malekzadeh; Leslie Mallinger; Sivabalan Manivannan; Wagner Marcenes; Lyn March; David J Margolis; Guy B Marks; Robin Marks; Akira Matsumori; Richard Matzopoulos; Bongani M Mayosi; John H McAnulty; Mary M McDermott; Neil McGill; John McGrath; Maria Elena Medina-Mora; Michele Meltzer; George A Mensah; Tony R Merriman; Ana-Claire Meyer; Valeria Miglioli; Matthew Miller; Ted R Miller; Philip B Mitchell; Charles Mock; Ana Olga Mocumbi; Terrie E Moffitt; Ali A Mokdad; Lorenzo Monasta; Marcella Montico; Maziar Moradi-Lakeh; Andrew Moran; Lidia Morawska; Rintaro Mori; Michele E Murdoch; Michael K Mwaniki; Kovin Naidoo; M Nathan Nair; Luigi Naldi; K M Venkat Narayan; Paul K Nelson; Robert G Nelson; Michael C Nevitt; Charles R Newton; Sandra Nolte; Paul Norman; Rosana Norman; Martin O'Donnell; Simon O'Hanlon; Casey Olives; Saad B Omer; Katrina Ortblad; Richard Osborne; Doruk Ozgediz; Andrew Page; Bishnu Pahari; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian; Andrea Panozo Rivero; Scott B Patten; Neil Pearce; Rogelio Perez Padilla; Fernando Perez-Ruiz; Norberto Perico; Konrad Pesudovs; David Phillips; Michael R Phillips; Kelsey Pierce; Sébastien Pion; Guilherme V Polanczyk; Suzanne Polinder; C Arden Pope; Svetlana Popova; Esteban Porrini; Farshad Pourmalek; Martin Prince; Rachel L Pullan; Kapa D Ramaiah; Dharani Ranganathan; Homie Razavi; Mathilda Regan; Jürgen T Rehm; David B Rein; Guiseppe Remuzzi; Kathryn Richardson; Frederick P Rivara; Thomas Roberts; Carolyn Robinson; Felipe Rodriguez De Leòn; Luca Ronfani; Robin Room; Lisa C Rosenfeld; Lesley Rushton; Ralph L Sacco; Sukanta Saha; Uchechukwu Sampson; Lidia Sanchez-Riera; Ella Sanman; David C Schwebel; James Graham Scott; Maria Segui-Gomez; Saeid Shahraz; Donald S Shepard; Hwashin Shin; Rupak Shivakoti; David Singh; Gitanjali M Singh; Jasvinder A Singh; Jessica Singleton; David A Sleet; Karen Sliwa; Emma Smith; Jennifer L Smith; Nicolas J C Stapelberg; Andrew Steer; Timothy Steiner; Wilma A Stolk; Lars Jacob Stovner; Christopher Sudfeld; Sana Syed; Giorgio Tamburlini; Mohammad Tavakkoli; Hugh R Taylor; Jennifer A Taylor; William J Taylor; Bernadette Thomas; W Murray Thomson; George D Thurston; Imad M Tleyjeh; Marcello Tonelli; Jeffrey A Towbin; Thomas Truelsen; Miltiadis K Tsilimbaris; Clotilde Ubeda; Eduardo A Undurraga; Marieke J van der Werf; Jim van Os; Monica S Vavilala; N Venketasubramanian; Mengru Wang; Wenzhi Wang; Kerrianne Watt; David J Weatherall; Martin A Weinstock; Robert Weintraub; Marc G Weisskopf; Myrna M Weissman; Richard A White; Harvey Whiteford; Natasha Wiebe; Steven T Wiersma; James D Wilkinson; Hywel C Williams; Sean R M Williams; Emma Witt; Frederick Wolfe; Anthony D Woolf; Sarah Wulf; Pon-Hsiu Yeh; Anita K M Zaidi; Zhi-Jie Zheng; David Zonies; Alan D Lopez; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ziad A Memish Journal: Lancet Date: 2012-12-15 Impact factor: 79.321
Authors: Theo Vos; Abraham D Flaxman; Mohsen Naghavi; Rafael Lozano; Catherine Michaud; Majid Ezzati; Kenji Shibuya; Joshua A Salomon; Safa Abdalla; Victor Aboyans; Jerry Abraham; Ilana Ackerman; Rakesh Aggarwal; Stephanie Y Ahn; Mohammed K Ali; Miriam Alvarado; H Ross Anderson; Laurie M Anderson; Kathryn G Andrews; Charles Atkinson; Larry M Baddour; Adil N Bahalim; Suzanne Barker-Collo; Lope H Barrero; David H Bartels; Maria-Gloria Basáñez; Amanda Baxter; Michelle L Bell; Emelia J Benjamin; Derrick Bennett; Eduardo Bernabé; Kavi Bhalla; Bishal Bhandari; Boris Bikbov; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Gretchen Birbeck; James A Black; Hannah Blencowe; Jed D Blore; Fiona Blyth; Ian Bolliger; Audrey Bonaventure; Soufiane Boufous; Rupert Bourne; Michel Boussinesq; Tasanee Braithwaite; Carol Brayne; Lisa Bridgett; Simon Brooker; Peter Brooks; Traolach S Brugha; Claire Bryan-Hancock; Chiara Bucello; Rachelle Buchbinder; Geoffrey Buckle; Christine M Budke; Michael Burch; Peter Burney; Roy Burstein; Bianca Calabria; Benjamin Campbell; Charles E Canter; Hélène Carabin; Jonathan Carapetis; Loreto Carmona; Claudia Cella; Fiona Charlson; Honglei Chen; Andrew Tai-Ann Cheng; David Chou; Sumeet S Chugh; Luc E Coffeng; Steven D Colan; Samantha Colquhoun; K Ellicott Colson; John Condon; Myles D Connor; Leslie T Cooper; Matthew Corriere; Monica Cortinovis; Karen Courville de Vaccaro; William Couser; Benjamin C Cowie; Michael H Criqui; Marita Cross; Kaustubh C Dabhadkar; Manu Dahiya; Nabila Dahodwala; James Damsere-Derry; Goodarz Danaei; Adrian Davis; Diego De Leo; Louisa Degenhardt; Robert Dellavalle; Allyne Delossantos; Julie Denenberg; Sarah Derrett; Don C Des Jarlais; Samath D Dharmaratne; Mukesh Dherani; Cesar Diaz-Torne; Helen Dolk; E Ray Dorsey; Tim Driscoll; Herbert Duber; Beth Ebel; Karen Edmond; Alexis Elbaz; Suad Eltahir Ali; Holly Erskine; Patricia J Erwin; Patricia Espindola; Stalin E Ewoigbokhan; Farshad Farzadfar; Valery Feigin; David T Felson; Alize Ferrari; Cleusa P Ferri; Eric M Fèvre; Mariel M Finucane; Seth Flaxman; Louise Flood; Kyle Foreman; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Francis Gerry R Fowkes; Richard Franklin; Marlene Fransen; Michael K Freeman; Belinda J Gabbe; Sherine E Gabriel; Emmanuela Gakidou; Hammad A Ganatra; Bianca Garcia; Flavio Gaspari; Richard F Gillum; Gerhard Gmel; Richard Gosselin; Rebecca Grainger; Justina Groeger; Francis Guillemin; David Gunnell; Ramyani Gupta; Juanita Haagsma; Holly Hagan; Yara A Halasa; Wayne Hall; Diana Haring; Josep Maria Haro; James E Harrison; Rasmus Havmoeller; Roderick J Hay; Hideki Higashi; Catherine Hill; Bruno Hoen; Howard Hoffman; Peter J Hotez; Damian Hoy; John J Huang; Sydney E Ibeanusi; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Spencer L James; Deborah Jarvis; Rashmi Jasrasaria; Sudha Jayaraman; Nicole Johns; Jost B Jonas; Ganesan Karthikeyan; Nicholas Kassebaum; Norito Kawakami; Andre Keren; Jon-Paul Khoo; Charles H King; Lisa Marie Knowlton; Olive Kobusingye; Adofo Koranteng; Rita Krishnamurthi; Ratilal Lalloo; Laura L Laslett; Tim Lathlean; Janet L Leasher; Yong Yi Lee; James Leigh; Stephen S Lim; Elizabeth Limb; John Kent Lin; Michael Lipnick; Steven E Lipshultz; Wei Liu; Maria Loane; Summer Lockett Ohno; Ronan Lyons; Jixiang Ma; Jacqueline Mabweijano; Michael F MacIntyre; Reza Malekzadeh; Leslie Mallinger; Sivabalan Manivannan; Wagner Marcenes; Lyn March; David J Margolis; Guy B Marks; Robin Marks; Akira Matsumori; Richard Matzopoulos; Bongani M Mayosi; John H McAnulty; Mary M McDermott; Neil McGill; John McGrath; Maria Elena Medina-Mora; Michele Meltzer; George A Mensah; Tony R Merriman; Ana-Claire Meyer; Valeria Miglioli; Matthew Miller; Ted R Miller; Philip B Mitchell; Ana Olga Mocumbi; Terrie E Moffitt; Ali A Mokdad; Lorenzo Monasta; Marcella Montico; Maziar Moradi-Lakeh; Andrew Moran; Lidia Morawska; Rintaro Mori; Michele E Murdoch; Michael K Mwaniki; Kovin Naidoo; M Nathan Nair; Luigi Naldi; K M Venkat Narayan; Paul K Nelson; Robert G Nelson; Michael C Nevitt; Charles R Newton; Sandra Nolte; Paul Norman; Rosana Norman; Martin O'Donnell; Simon O'Hanlon; Casey Olives; Saad B Omer; Katrina Ortblad; Richard Osborne; Doruk Ozgediz; Andrew Page; Bishnu Pahari; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian; Andrea Panozo Rivero; Scott B Patten; Neil Pearce; Rogelio Perez Padilla; Fernando Perez-Ruiz; Norberto Perico; Konrad Pesudovs; David Phillips; Michael R Phillips; Kelsey Pierce; Sébastien Pion; Guilherme V Polanczyk; Suzanne Polinder; C Arden Pope; Svetlana Popova; Esteban Porrini; Farshad Pourmalek; Martin Prince; Rachel L Pullan; Kapa D Ramaiah; Dharani Ranganathan; Homie Razavi; Mathilda Regan; Jürgen T Rehm; David B Rein; Guiseppe Remuzzi; Kathryn Richardson; Frederick P Rivara; Thomas Roberts; Carolyn Robinson; Felipe Rodriguez De Leòn; Luca Ronfani; Robin Room; Lisa C Rosenfeld; Lesley Rushton; Ralph L Sacco; Sukanta Saha; Uchechukwu Sampson; Lidia Sanchez-Riera; Ella Sanman; David C Schwebel; James Graham Scott; Maria Segui-Gomez; Saeid Shahraz; Donald S Shepard; Hwashin Shin; Rupak Shivakoti; David Singh; Gitanjali M Singh; Jasvinder A Singh; Jessica Singleton; David A Sleet; Karen Sliwa; Emma Smith; Jennifer L Smith; Nicolas J C Stapelberg; Andrew Steer; Timothy Steiner; Wilma A Stolk; Lars Jacob Stovner; Christopher Sudfeld; Sana Syed; Giorgio Tamburlini; Mohammad Tavakkoli; Hugh R Taylor; Jennifer A Taylor; William J Taylor; Bernadette Thomas; W Murray Thomson; George D Thurston; Imad M Tleyjeh; Marcello Tonelli; Jeffrey A Towbin; Thomas Truelsen; Miltiadis K Tsilimbaris; Clotilde Ubeda; Eduardo A Undurraga; Marieke J van der Werf; Jim van Os; Monica S Vavilala; N Venketasubramanian; Mengru Wang; Wenzhi Wang; Kerrianne Watt; David J Weatherall; Martin A Weinstock; Robert Weintraub; Marc G Weisskopf; Myrna M Weissman; Richard A White; Harvey Whiteford; Steven T Wiersma; James D Wilkinson; Hywel C Williams; Sean R M Williams; Emma Witt; Frederick Wolfe; Anthony D Woolf; Sarah Wulf; Pon-Hsiu Yeh; Anita K M Zaidi; Zhi-Jie Zheng; David Zonies; Alan D Lopez; Christopher J L Murray; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ziad A Memish Journal: Lancet Date: 2012-12-15 Impact factor: 79.321
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