Abstract
During past decades, the number of dentists has continuously increased in Iran. Beside the quantity, the distribution of dentists affects the oral health status of population. The current study aimed to assess the pure and social disparities in distribution of dentists across the provinces in Iran in 2009. Data on provinces’ characteristics, including population and social situation, were obtained from multiple sources. The disparity measures (including Gini coefficient, index of dissimilarity, Gaswirth index of disparity and relative index of inequality (RII)) and pairwise correlations were used to evaluate the pure and social disparities in the number of dentists in Iran. On average, there were 28 dentists per 100,000 population in the country. There were substantial pure disparities in the distribution of dentists across the provinces in Iran. The unadjusted and adjusted RII values were 3.82 and 2.13, respectively; indicating area social disparity in favor of people in better-off provinces. There were strong positive correlations between density of dentists and better social rank. It is suggested that the results of this study should be considered in conducting plans for redistribution of dentists in the country. In addition, further analyses are needed to explain these disparities.
Highlights
Oral health is considered an important part of populations’ health and wellbeing [1]
We focused on following two research questions: How were the dentists distributed across the provinces in 2009? And was this distribution associated with the provinces’ social rank (SR)? These questions are among policy interests as equity in access to health care is a common goal of policy-makers in all countries
We examined how dentists were distributed across the provinces in Iran regardless the provinces’
Summary
Oral health is considered an important part of populations’ health and wellbeing [1]. There are in general social inequalities in access and utilization of dental services [10,11,12,13]. People with a lower SR have poorer oral health status, but they may have lower access to oral health care resources. These issues brought the WHO to encourage countries to incorporate oral health as an integral part of policies for prevention of non-communicable diseases and to promote the accessibility and availability of oral health services especially for poor and disadvantaged populations [1]
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