title: Dental manpower planning in India: current scenario and future projections for the year 2020.
abstract: Dental manpower issues in India are discussed in this article which consists of both qualitative and quantitative research. The output of qualified dentists has increased substantially over last decade and at present there are over 117,825 dentists working in India. Although India has a dentist to population ratio of 1:10,271, the newly graduating dentists find it difficult to survive in the private sector. At present less than approximately 5% graduated dentists are working in the Government sector. If the present situation continues there will be more than one lakh dentists over supply by the year 2020. Continuation of the current situation will lead to wastage of highly trained dental manpower and create a threat to the professional integrity of the dentists. This research highlights the fact that there is an urgent need for an organised national human resource planning system to control the supply and demand of dental manpower, to ensure a uniform distribution of manpower and to give future directions to policy makers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Drs SNR Siddhartha Institute of Dental Sciences, Gannavaram, India.
authors.forename: Sudhakar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vundavalli
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003657:Decision Making; D003729:Dental Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003815:Dentists / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D005544:Forecasting; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011050:Policy Making; D017149:Private Sector / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017150:Public Sector / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Dental manpower requirement; dental manpower planning in India; dentist to population ratio