A Cross-Sectional Investigation of Rural Dental Practice as Related to Gender, Hometown, and Career Stage

This investigation explores how gender, career stage, and rurality of graduates' hometowns relate to dental practice location, specifically within Alabama's rural communities.

This cross-sectional study explored demographics and practice locations for 2000-2020 graduates (N = 1233) from the state's dental school. This investigation compared findings across multiple definitions of rural status.

Gender emerged as a significant predictor of rural practice for only one of the rural definitions. Females were less likely than males (6% vs. 12%) to practice in a low-population county (< 50,000), χ² = 11.03, p < 0.001. When controlling for both career stage and rurality of hometown, males are 2.04 times more likely (95% CI [1.29, 3.21]) to practice in a low-population county as compared to females, p = 0.002. Among graduates from rural or workforce shortage areas, no differences emerged in practice location based on either gender or career stage. Graduates from a rural county are significantly more likely than their non-rural peers to practice rural. Early-career dentists are not working in rural locations at significantly different rates from their mid-career peers.

More providers are needed to serve rural residents and graduates with rural upbringing are the most likely to fulfill this need. Rural practice appears to attract males and females in similar proportions, but more males than females gravitate towards low-population counties. Given populations and workforce trends, dental educators, policy makers, organized dentistry, and rural communities must all implement initiatives incentivizing dental practice in Alabama generally and her rural communities specifically.