345,000 dentists practise in the European Union
By Dental Tribune International
LUXEMBOURG: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU), has published an update on the number of dentists working in the EU. According to the data, around 345,000 dentists worked in the region in 2014 and almost 13,000 students graduated from EU dental schools.
In relation to population numbers, Greece recorded the highest number of dentists, with 126 per 100,000 inhabitants. Bulgaria and Cyprus followed with 98, and Estonia recorded 92 dentists per 100,000 inhabitants. The countries that registered fewer than 50 practising dentists per 100,000 inhabitants were Slovakia, Malta and Poland.
Between 2009 and 2014, the number of practising dentists per 100,000 inhabitants remained almost unchanged in most of the EU member states. There were, however, seven member states that experienced a substantial increase in the number of practising dentists. The largest change was recorded in Lithuania, with an additional 21 dentists per 100,000 inhabitants (+30 per cent), followed by Romania (+29 per cent), Hungary (+28 per cent), Italy (+24 per cent), Spain (+23 per cent) and Bulgaria (+13 per cent). The opposite trend occurred in some countries, where the number of dentists per 100,000 inhabitants fell between 2009 and 2014, including Greece, Denmark and France.
Statistics on the number of dentists graduating in the EU member states show that in 2014 the number of dentistry graduates was close to 13,000. Among the EU member states, Germany had the highest number of dentistry graduates (2,300) in 2014. According to data from 2013, France, Romania, Spain, and the UK each produced more than 1,000 dentistry graduates.
