In this study, the authors used observational data from 2014 to evaluate the association between the number of general dentists and several community characteristics.
The authors collected community-level characteristics from secondary sources for all 947 Iowa incorporated communities to study their relationships with the mean number of general dentists per 1,000 population per square mile (population density), the dependent variable. The authors used zero-inflated negative binomial models to examine the association between the dependent and predictor variables.
Only 22.8% of communities had a dentist. Urban, young, well-educated, fluoridated communities with at least 1 elementary school had the highest estimated mean concentration of dentists. Isolated communities with older, less educated adults and lacking fluoridation and an elementary school had the fewest dentists.
Although population is an important determinant for where a dentist practices, other variables such as urbanization, demographic characteristics, fluoridation status, and presence of at least 1 elementary school are also predictors of the number of dentists in a community.
These findings provide dental students and young practitioners useful information by highlighting community characteristics that are associated with office locations.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 September 2020.
All research outputs
#9,193,715
of 34,411,289 outputs
Outputs from Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA)
#1,073
of 3,363 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#111,855
of 373,633 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA)
#18
of 55 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,411,289 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,363 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 373,633 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 55 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its contemporaries.
