Health inequalities in the geographic distribution of dental practitioners in Costa Rica: an ecological study

Año de publicación

2023

UUID

4e83a109-613f-4f02-97ca-cb7a8162352c

Resumen

Results: Mean national LPA was 6.5 full-time equivalents per 10 000 inhabitants, 3.4% of the Costa Rican population had no access to dentist; 12.9% had very low accessibil- ity, 22.7% had low accessibility, 35.0% had good accessibility, 16.2% had high accessi- bility, and 9.8% had very high accessibility. Overall, 39% of the population has a rather low accessibility. LPA was higher in urban districts compared to rural districts and in wealthiest districts compared to most disadvantaged districts. Within districts, after adjustment for district's characteristics, LPA was higher in urban MGU compared to rural MGU and in wealthiest MGU compared to most disadvantaged MGU. Conclusions: This study found that despite having a high number of dentists, their numbers are small in many areas, increasing inequalities in access to health care. The dentist's free establishment, where they can decide to provide private services within a community, creates zones with very high densities, in particular in the wealthiest urban areas, and others with very low densities, in particular the poorest rural areas. The lack of territorial planning has been one of the reasons that has encouraged an imbalance in the availability of dental human resources. To achieve effective universal

Publicador

Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, Early view

Enlace del origen de la publicación

Documentación restringida

Sí

Tipo de publicación

Article

Descriptores

• SALUD
• SERVICIOS DE SALUD
• SALUD PUBLICA
• DESIGUALDAD
• HEALTH INEQUITIES
• HEALTH SERVICES GEOGRAPHIC
• LMICs
• HEALTH INEQUALITIES
• HEALTH SERVICES AVAILABILITY
• ACCESIBILITY