Dental Hygiene Practice and Workforce Development
Summary
Dental hygiene practice encompasses a wide range of preventive and therapeutic services aimed at maintaining and improving oral health. Practitioners play a central role in patient education, risk assessment, periodontal maintenance and the early detection of oral diseases. Workforce development in dental hygiene involves educational frameworks, regulatory standards and career pathways that support recruitment, retention and the expansion of professional roles. In recent years, demographic shifts, workforce shortages and rising oral health needs have driven efforts to forecast supply and demand, enhance training curricula and explore novel models of care delivery. Emphasis has also fallen on flexible working arrangements, return-to-practice initiatives and extended scopes of practice to ensure equitable access to oral health services across diverse populations and settings.
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Dental Hygiene Practice and Workforce Development publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in dental hygiene practice and workforce development across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Scope of practice: The legally defined range of procedures and responsibilities that a dental hygienist is permitted to perform.
Workforce projections: Forecasts of future supply and demand for dental hygienists based on demographic, educational and economic trends.
Scoping review: A systematic method for mapping the key concepts and evidence gaps within a broad field of research.
Re-entry: The process by which dental hygienists return to professional practice after a period of absence, often requiring retraining or certification updates.
References
- Identification and assessment of factors that impact the demand for and supply of dental hygienists amidst an evolving workforce context: a scoping review. BMC Oral Health (2024).
- Anaesthesia and Caries Treatment by Dental Hygienists: A Worldwide Review. International Dental Journal (2022).
- Factors Behind Leaving the Job and Rejoining it by the Japanese Dental Hygienist. The Open Dentistry Journal (2020).
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