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Projecting the Demand for Dental Care in 2040.

The purpose of this study was to provide a forward-thinking assessment of the underlying factors likely to impact trends in dental care demand and the need for dental providers in 2020, 2025, and beyond. Dental workforce trends and their likely impact on the need for dentists are a function of predicted dental care demand, which will in turn be determined by the size and characteristics of our population size, economic outlook, the state of public and private dental care insurance, trends in dental care delivery, professionally determined dental care need, and population health beliefs. Projecting rates of dental care utilization far into the future is difficult because projections must be made using historical data, and established trends may not persist if there is structural change in the future. Nonetheless, when structural change occurs, it does not typically affect all aspects of the economy, so there is value in describing the likely future impact of current trends. This article was written as part of the project "Advancing Dental Education in the 21st Century."