IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v71y2010i11p2014-2019.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increasing supply of dentists induces their geographic diffusion in contrast with physicians in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Toyokawa, Satoshi
  • Kobayashi, Yasuki

Abstract

The geographical distribution of health professionals reflects behavioral characteristics of such professionals and of the health system in which they work. The spill-over hypothesis asserts that their oversupply leads to a more even geographic distribution. The current surplus of dentists in Japan is a suitable opportunity to observe such situations. This study demonstrates the transition of the geographic distribution of dentists from 1980 to 2000 in comparison with that of physicians. Using data from the Population Census and the Physician, Dentist, and Pharmacist Census, we calculated the ratio of dentists working in clinics and hospitals per population in 1980, 1990, and 2000 and the Gini coefficients according to the municipality boundaries at the end of 2000. We also plotted the municipalities on a graph, which illustrated the ratios of the dentists by population. We did the same analysis with physician data. The number of dentists increased by 71% during the 20 years studied. The ratios of dentists/100,000 population were 44.1, 58.3, and 69.7 in 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively. The Gini coefficients for dentists by municipality were 0.270, 0.213, and 0.197, excluding the municipalities with a dental university or its hospital. In contrast, the Gini coefficients for physicians barely changed while the number of physicians increased by 60% during the same periods. The graphs for dentists appeared to indicate the ceiling of those ratios (approximately 100 dentists/100,000 population), but such a ceiling was not seen for physicians. The supply of dentists might have reached a level that generated the geographic diffusion and redistribution of dentists in Japan, in contrast with the situation involving physicians. This supports some results from other countries suggesting that saturation of local markets for health professionals may result in geographical redistribution, producing a more equal pattern of provision across the national space.

Suggested Citation

  • Toyokawa, Satoshi & Kobayashi, Yasuki, 2010. "Increasing supply of dentists induces their geographic diffusion in contrast with physicians in Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(11), pages 2014-2019, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:11:p:2014-2019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(10)00653-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Horev, Tuvia & Pesis-Katz, Irena & Mukamel, Dana B., 2004. "Trends in geographic disparities in allocation of health care resources in the US," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 223-232, May.
    2. Matsumoto, Masatoshi & Kajii, Eiji, 2009. "Medical education program with obligatory rural service: Analysis of factors associated with obligation compliance," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(2-3), pages 125-132, May.
    3. Jiang, H. Joanna & Begun, James W., 2002. "Dynamics of change in local physician supply: an ecological perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(10), pages 1525-1541, May.
    4. J R Barnett, 1993. "Does the Geographic Distribution of Physicians Reflect Market Failure?: An Examination of the New Zealand Experience, 1981–87," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 25(6), pages 827-846, June.
    5. Mick, Stephen S. & Lee, Shoou-Yih D. & Wodchis, Walter P., 2000. "Variations in geographical distribution of foreign and domestically trained physicians in the United States: 'safety nets' or 'surplus exacerbation'?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 185-202, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric Delattre & Anne-Laure Samson, 2012. "Stratégies de localisation des médecins généralistes français : mécanismes économiques ou hédonistes ?," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 455(1), pages 115-142.
    2. Prentice, Julia C., 2006. "Neighborhood effects on primary care access in Los Angeles," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 1291-1303, March.
    3. Chen, Zhuo & Roy, Kakoli & Haddix, Anne C. & Thacker, Stephen B., 2010. "Factors associated with differences in mortality and self-reported health across states in the United States," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 203-210, March.
    4. Dina Metwally, 2014. "Patients' Satisfaction with Primary Health Care in Egypt: Exploring the Gap between Rural and Urban Governorates," Journal of Social and Development Sciences, AMH International, vol. 5(4), pages 221-230.
    5. Fang Wu & Wei Chen & Lingling Lin & Xu Ren & Yingna Qu, 2022. "The Balanced Allocation of Medical and Health Resources in Urban Areas of China from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Nanjing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-28, May.
    6. Govind, Rahul & Chatterjee, Rabikar & Mittal, Vikas, 2008. "Timely access to health care: Customer-focused resource allocation in a hospital network," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 294-300.
    7. Grzybowski, Stefan & Kornelsen, Jude & Schuurman, Nadine, 2009. "Planning the optimal level of local maternity service for small rural communities: A systems study in British Columbia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(2-3), pages 149-157, October.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11295 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Liping Fu & Kaibo Xu & Feng Liu & Lu Liang & Zhengmin Wang, 2021. "Regional Disparity and Patients Mobility: Benefits and Spillover Effects of the Spatial Network Structure of the Health Services in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-16, January.
    10. Isabel Correia & Paula Veiga, 2010. "Geographic distribution of physicians in Portugal," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 11(4), pages 383-393, August.
    11. Jin Li & Jie Li & Jian Huang, 2022. "Research on the Equity and Optimal Allocation of Basic Medical Services in Guangzhou in the Context of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-15, November.
    12. Adolf Kwadzo Dzampe & Shingo Takahashi, 2022. "Competition and physician-induced demand in a healthcare market with regulated price: evidence from Ghana," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 295-313, September.
    13. Suraratdecha, Chutima & Okunade, Albert A., 2006. "Measuring operational efficiency in a health care system: A case study from Thailand," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 2-23, June.
    14. Aalto, Anna-Mari & Heponiemi, Tarja & Väänänen, Ari & Bergbom, Barbara & Sinervo, Timo & Elovainio, Marko, 2014. "Is working in culturally diverse working environment associated with physicians’ work-related well-being? A cross-sectional survey study among Finnish physicians," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 187-194.
    15. Jiawei Zhang & Peien Han & Yan Sun & Jingyu Zhao & Li Yang, 2021. "Assessing Spatial Accessibility to Primary Health Care Services in Beijing, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-13, December.
    16. Xueling Wu & Ruiqi Mao & Xiaojia Guo, 2022. "Equilibrium of Tiered Healthcare Resources during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: A Case Study of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-17, June.
    17. Mu, Chunzhou, 2015. "The age profile of the location decision of Australian general practitioners," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 183-193.
    18. Matsumoto, Masatoshi & Inoue, Kazuo & Bowman, Robert & Noguchi, Satomi & Kajii, Eiji, 2010. "Physician scarcity is a predictor of further scarcity in US, and a predictor of concentration in Japan," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(2-3), pages 129-136, May.
    19. Lei Zhu & Shuang Zhong & Wei Tu & Jing Zheng & Shenjing He & Junzhe Bao & Cunrui Huang, 2019. "Assessing Spatial Accessibility to Medical Resources at the Community Level in Shenzhen, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-15, January.
    20. Koichiro Yuji & Seiya Imoto & Rui Yamaguchi & Tomoko Matsumura & Naoko Murashige & Yuko Kodama & Satoru Minayo & Kohzoh Imai & Masahiro Kami, 2012. "Forecasting Japan's Physician Shortage in 2035 as the First Full-Fledged Aged Society," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-8, November.
    21. Brenton Peterson & Sonal Pandya & David Leblang, 2014. "Doctors with borders: occupational licensing as an implicit barrier to high skill migration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 45-63, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:11:p:2014-2019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.