Oral health is an important component to overall health and well-being, and access to dental care depends in part on having a sufficient workforce — with adequate distribution across rural and non-rural areas — to provide these services. Across the United States, the Health Resources and Services Administration projects a 46% shortage of dentists in nonmetropolitan areas by 2038, which would leave residents in these regions with limited access to dental care. For Arkansas, this is important to consider given the state’s large rural population. In July 2025, the Lyon College School of Dental Medicine, Arkansas’s first dental school, welcomed its inaugural class, a step toward growing the state’s dentist workforce.
This interactive dashboard examining the dentist workforce in Arkansas is intended to inform policymakers, healthcare leaders, and other stakeholders about the supply, characteristics, and distribution of dentists so they can make evidence-based decisions regarding provider access across Arkansas communities. The dashboard uses data from the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative’s All-Payer Claims Database and licensure data from the Arkansas State Board of Dental Examiners.
The dashboard provides visualizations at the state, county, and regional levels and includes information on dentist demographics and activity status (e.g., full time, part time). Activity levels are based on claims and do not represent full-time-equivalent workload. All data shown are for 2024.
Key findings include:
- There were 1,160 actively practicing dentists in Arkansas, or 3.7 per 10,000 residents; there were 676 who practiced full time, defined as practicing 150 or more active days during the year.
- 42% of dentists practiced less than full time, defined as practicing fewer than 150 active days during the year.
- 12 counties had no actively practicing full-time dentists.
- 81% of full-time dentists were younger than 60.
- Early-career dentists (under age 45) were slightly more likely to practice full time compared to dentists 45 or older (61% vs. 56%).
- The dentist workforce showed differences by sex: 74% were male and 26% were female, although the gap was narrower among early-career dentists (62% vs. 38%).
- Black and Hispanic dentists made up 3% and 1% of the dentist workforce, respectively, and were underrepresented relative to their state population shares (15% and 9%, respectively).
A note on dentist counts and activity status across geographic levels: The dashboard calculates dentist activity separately at each level of geography, so counts will differ between views. In the state view, each dentist is classified once based on total statewide activity. Because a dentist may practice in more than one county or region, a dentist may be counted in multiple counties or regions. As a result, the county or region view will show different total counts. Also, totals may vary between views because a small number of dentists could not be assigned to a specific practice area.
About the Data
The data presented in this dashboard were obtained from the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative’s All-Payer Claims Database and licensure data from the Arkansas State Board of Dental Examiners. Population estimates used to calculate dentist rates were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020-2025 population estimates.
To be included in the dashboard, a dentist must:
- Hold a valid Arkansas medical license and a National Provider Identifier (NPI).
- Have delivered services to at least two patients on the same day (an “active day”) at least once during 2024.
Dentist activity levels are based on the number of active days per year:
- Full time: 150 or more active days
- Part time: 50-149 active days
- Limited time: 11-49 active days
- Very limited time: 1-10 active days
Dentist activity reflects only services represented in the claims data. Some dentists may also practice in settings or perform activities that do not generate claims, such as care provided through the Veterans Health Administration, Social Security disability determinations, or other non-claims-based services. These activities are not reflected in the dashboard.
Manual review was performed as needed to resolve missing or inconsistent information.
Demographic details were primarily obtained from licensure files.
Geographic views on the dashboard are available at several levels:
- Statewide (all dentists meeting inclusion criteria).
- County of service location.
- Marketplace regions used by the Arkansas Insurance Department.
- Rurality, based on the 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC), which distinguish counties by population size and proximity to metropolitan areas. Urban counties were defined by RUCC codes 1-3. Rural counties were defined by RUCC codes 4-9.
Counts of active dentists and activity classifications may differ between state and county views because activity is calculated separately at each level. For example, a dentist may be full time at the state level but part time in a specific county, depending on where the dentist’s active days occurred. A small number of dentists could not be assigned to a specific county.
This project was supported by a Strategic Initiative Grant from the Delta Dental of Arkansas Foundation.