One page, eleven state files: HPI's state-level data hub for supply, migration, Medicaid and economic impact

What it says#

The state-level hub is an index, not a report. Its framing is direct: "The American Dental Association has developed a rich foundation of state-level data to guide health organizations, state legislators, dental practice owners, and health researchers in policy reform." What follows is a list of downloads and tools grouped under three headings, dental workforce, dental practices, and access to care.

Under workforce, the hub points at Supply of Dentists in the U.S., the annually updated Excel file with dentist counts and per-100,000 ratios by state. The 2001 to 2024 edition reports 202,485 professionally active dentists nationally in 2024 and 59.53 per 100,000 people, running from 40.2 per 100,000 in Arkansas and 40.4 in Alabama to 78.4 in Alaska and 103.2 in the District of Columbia. The same section links the 2025 workforce report, which this directory covers separately, and HPI's workforce projection model, which the hub says can be run for a specific state on request.

The migration files are the piece you will not find anywhere else. HPI matched every professionally active dentist in the end-of-2019 masterfile to the end-of-2024 masterfile by ADA number: 200,419 dentists were professionally active in 2019 and 169,639 of them, 84.6%, were matched five years later. The tables report, for each state, how many remained, how many left, how many entered, and net migration in absolute numbers and as a percent of the 2019 count, for all dentists and separately for those with less than 10 years of experience, those with 10 or more, and specialists early in their careers. Idaho led on net migration at plus 76 dentists, 8.8% of its 2019 count, followed by Delaware at 8.4%, New Hampshire at 8.2%, South Dakota at 7.7% and Utah at 6.7%. At the other end, the District of Columbia lost 37 dentists, 5.6% of its base, Massachusetts lost 229, Pennsylvania lost 291, Louisiana lost 84 and Kentucky lost 96. A separate table puts the same five-year migration rate for the general population alongside it.

Under dental practices, the hub carries two things. The 2024 practice modality file breaks dentist affiliation down by number of practice locations and DSO status, with state-level results and results by experience level. The economic impact file, built on 2022 data, is the one owners quote at chamber lunches: 1,010,040 jobs inside offices of dentists, 1,443,347 other jobs supported, 2,453,387 jobs in total, $165.3 billion of direct dental spending, $312.5 billion of indirect and induced spending and $477.8 billion of total economic impact, about $2.359 million per dentist. HPI's infographic rounds that to $478 billion, $2.4 million per dentist, and the rule that every job in a dental office generates 1.4 additional jobs elsewhere.

Under access to care sit Medicaid in Dental Care Programs, with state-level adult benefit levels, dentist participation, utilization and reimbursement; the Medicaid Adult Dental Coverage Checker built with the CareQuest Institute, updated in 2025 with trends back to 2020; state oral health and well-being fact sheets; and a 2017 county-level geo-analysis of how much of each state's population lives within a 15-minute travel time to a dentist. Two ADA resources that are not HPI research are also linked from here: an interactive dental licensure map and a dental team career pathways map covering assistant, expanded function, hygienist and laboratory technician requirements by state.

Who it applies to#

The workforce files describe professionally active dentists in the 50 states and the District of Columbia: licensed, not retired, and working in private practice, a dental school, the armed forces, another federal service, state or local government, a hospital, a residency or another health organization. Dentists in U.S. territories and in the armed forces overseas are excluded. The economic impact file describes offices of dentists as the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines them, NAICS 6212, using 2022 annual average employment, with indirect jobs and spending derived from published multipliers rather than measured.

For an owner the hub is a market file. The supply and migration tables tell you whether dentists are arriving in or leaving your state and at what career stage. The modality file tells you how consolidated your state already is. The Medicaid material tells you what an adult Medicaid patient is worth in your state before you decide whether to take the plan. None of it describes your practice.

What changed#

The hub has moved to newer vintages across the board. The workforce section now leads with the 2025 update of the U.S. dentist workforce report and the 2024 supply file rather than earlier editions, the migration study is the 2019 to 2024 analysis published in 2026, the practice modality data is the 2024 revision in which HPI says it "revised and improved its data collection and analysis methods," and the Medicaid coverage checker was updated in 2025.

One number on the page does not match the file behind it. The hub's own text says dental offices generate "a $487 billion economic annual impact and create 2.5 million jobs," while the spreadsheet it links reports $477.8 billion and the infographic says $478 billion. Use the spreadsheet figure and cite the data year, 2022. The economic impact analysis is also the oldest method on the page: its spending multiplier comes from a 2004 JADA paper, and the underlying national health expenditure data it applies are for 2022.

Where the source is#

The hub sits on ADA.org at the HPI state-level data page and is free, with no login. Each item on it is a link to either a downloadable Excel or PDF file, an interactive tool, or another ADA page; the page itself carries no data beyond its summary sentences. The hub also points at ADA.org/HPIForStates, where HPI describes collaborating with a state health department on in-depth reports, and at a custom state-level data reports page. Every file named here is copyright the American Dental Association, and the copyright years on the individual spreadsheets run from 2024 to 2026, one year behind or level with the data they hold.