The Status of Dental Shortage Areas in New York State

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to provide accessible information about the current dental health manpower shortage areas in the state of New York. Ideally this project's information will act as a resource for any dentist who wishes to impact the access to care issues in New York State.
Methods: The study is a retrospective data compilation and processing project. The data analyzed is provided by Departments of the New York State Goverment and the United States Government.
Results: Based off the data, Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) were spread throughout New York State. Out of 62 counties in the state, 29 were found to contain at least an area with a Dental HPSA. Many of these counties being found upstate with lower dentist per population ratios. Demographic data for the HPSA containing counties was also collected.
Conclusions: From the wide range of aspects including: social (providing access to care), economic (lack of competition), and incentives (student debt reduction), a prospective dental practitioner may find this information (regarding dental HPSAs) valuable in choosing the location of their practice. To provide accessibility to this information, an interactive tablet application (iOS) was created to display the data.