High-acuity GIS mapping of private practice dental services in New Zealand: does service match need?

New Zealand is a country with a relatively small population (4 million people) distributed unevenly over a relatively large land area. Adult oral health services in New Zealand are almost all delivered through a market-driven, private practice model and are funded directly by patient payments. Little attention has been given to the distribution of these services. This study reports the findings of a high-acuity examination of the distribution of private dental practices in New Zealand, using modern geographic information system (GIS) tools.

A total of 1,045 private dental practices in New Zealand were geocoded. These dental practices overlaid 1,909 area units.

The highest practice: adult population ratios found in this study reflected the areas with the highest population densities of Maori and Pacific Islander people.

Oral health has a substantial impact on health-related quality of life and the utilisation of dental care services can contribute to its improvement. As such, it is expected that access to care should be focused on the population groups with the highest degree of need. However, in a market-driven, mostly private practice model, such as that in New Zealand, available care is concentrated largely in areas of high socioeconomic status and in populations with lower levels of oral disease.