The Rocky Mountain Region's Dental Care Shortage

December 31, 2021, data released by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reported that about 64.2 million Americans resided in settings or communities designated as a dental health professional shortage area (HPSA).  A dental health HPSA is a facility, population group, or geographic area where dental care access is lacking because too few dentists serve the area relative to the population size of the HPSA.  HPSAs in the five-state Rocky Mountain region accounted for approximately 4.3% of the U.S. population who lived in dental care shortage areas.  The HRSA estimates that HPSAs in the five Rocky Mountain states would need 342 additional dentists to eliminate the dental care shortage in the region.  This shortfall represented just over 3.0% of the nation's dental care shortage.  Here is a state-level look at the Rocky Mountain region's dental care shortage:

The Rocky Mountain Region's Dental Care Shortage

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortage
CO	99	1,146,685	140
ID	99	512,766	67
MT	129	354,148	50
UT	63	707,273	77
WY	30	49,008	8
Region	420	2,769,880	342
U.S.	6,803	64,236,250	11,181

(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a dental care shortage

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Dental Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, 12/31/21 (HRSA)