The declining number of practicing African American dentists in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, 1970 through 2010

Abstract

Background: The authors tracked the declining number of practicing African American dentists and its relationship to the migratory patterns of the black community in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, from Jan. 1, 1970, through Dec. 31, 2010.

Methods: The authors conducted a longitudinal study in which they used the Geographic Information System (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands, Calif.) to plot the location of each black-owned dental practice in Cuyahoga County in conjunction with the black population. They calculated the ages of the dentists by using birth dates posted on the Ohio State Dental Board's Web site and divided the dentists into five age groups.

Results: The study results showed that dental practice distributions followed the migratory pattern of the black population from Cleveland to the surrounding suburbs. The number of black dentists in practice decreased from 1986 through 2010 in the Cleveland metropolitan area (Cuyahoga County), and 46.3 percent of the black dentists were projected to retire by 2020.

Conclusions: These results underscore the need to increase the number of black dentists in Cuyahoga County and nationwide. On the basis of the demographic data they found, the authors expect the number of black dentists to continue to decrease if no intervening circumstances occur. Practice Implications. There were 48.8 percent fewer black dentists in Cuyahoga County in 2010 than there were in 1985. If this pattern continued until 2020, there could be a critical shortage of black dentists in Cuyahoga County.