More than 24 million Americans live in dental care shortage areas, according to a Dec. 23 study published by JAMA Network.
Here are nine things to know about the study:
1. Nearly 1.7 million individuals in the U.S. do not have access to a dental clinic within a 30 minute drive.
2. In addition, 24.7 million Americans live in dental care shortage areas. The study defined a dental care shortage area as an area with less than one dentist per 5,000 individuals.
3. Rural areas and areas with high levels of segregation and socioeconomic deprivation were more likely to have dental care shortage areas.
4. On average, there is one dentist for every 3,850 individuals in rural areas compared to one dentist for every 1,470 individuals in urban areas.
5. Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., were the only states that did not have any dental deserts.
6. Alaska had the highest percentage of residents living in a dental desert out of any state with more than 10% of its residents in a dental desert.
7. Nearly 800 out of the more than 3,000 U.S. counties had a shortage of dentists. More than 10 million individuals live in the 787 counties with a dentist shortage.
8. Nearly 400 counties have significant disparities in access to dental clinics.
9. The cross-sectional study included more than 200,000 dentists in the U.S.