Demographic trends and profiles of the US dental public health workforce

The demand on dental public health services continues to rise with increasing global oral health needs. Currently, there are 13 accredited Dental Public Health (DPH) US residency programs that fulfill requirements for specialty certification. Knowing the composition of current and past residents and observing trends in their profiles will inform us about future DPH manpower trained in the US. Methods: An in-depth survey of 51 Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) DPH alumni was conducted using a validated survey tool. Similar data from other US programs has been collected from program directors. Results: HSDM data revealed a sharp increase in the female-to-male ratio over the past 3 decades. While 98% of these graduates work in the US, 71% of current enrollees are international students and 86% are internationally trained. For graduates who completed a DPH residency, board certification highly correlates with practicing DPH. Many graduates (80%) reported that they were employed in a setting associated with DPH: academic, public, and government. Similar data collected from other programs is being analyzed and compared to our findings. Trends in each program, as well as an overall analysis of the trends in DPH graduate profiles will be presented. Conclusions: Recent HSDM Dental Public Health residents have been mostly female and internationally based, indicating a definite change in graduate profiles. There is strong evidence that formal DPH training and board certification results in a committed workforce. We expect to see similar trends when we include data from the other US programs.