December 31, 2022, data released by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reported that about 69.8 million Americans resided in settings or communities designated as dental health professional shortage areas (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% 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 328 additional dentists to eliminate the dental care shortage in the region.  This shortfall represented about 2.8% 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	106	1,102,176	120
ID	106	523,077	69
MT	134	381,453	54
UT	64	707,533	77
WY	29	49,361	8
Region	439	2,763,600	328
U.S.	7,313	69,766,605	11,909
% of U.S.	6.0%	4.0%	2.8%

(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, 12/31/22 (HRSA)