Forecasting future dental health expenditures: Development of a framework using data from 32 OECD countries

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Health Services Research
• Econometrics

Background:

• Forecasting future dental expenditures is essential for effective health policy and resource planning.
• Current data limitations pose challenges to accurate predictions of dental spending.
• Understanding trends in dental expenditures is vital for sustainable healthcare systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a framework for forecasting future dental expenditures using available data.
• To identify research and data gaps for improving future dental expenditure predictions.
• To provide insights into the future economic landscape of dental care in OECD countries.

Main Methods:

• Employed dynamic univariate and multivariate modeling approaches across 32 OECD countries.
• Utilized auto-regressive (AR) dynamic models to incorporate historical dental expenditure trends.
• Incorporated economic growth (GDP) and demographic changes in multivariate models.

Main Results:

• Dental expenditure forecasts varied significantly based on model specifications.
• Models including dental morbidity performed poorly in predicting expenditures.
• The best-fitted univariate AR(2) model forecasted total dental expenditures to reach US$594 billion by 2040.

Conclusions:

• The study demonstrates the feasibility and challenges of predicting dental expenditures.
• Findings suggest substantial increases and considerable cross-country variations in OECD dental expenditures over two decades.
• More comprehensive data on dental spending and morbidity are urgently needed for accurate estimations.