An analysis on US health-care systems for 2023 has included data on the states with the most and fewest dentists per capita, with a three-place tie for most dentists.
The personal financial website WalletHub released its 2023 rankings of the states with the best and worst health-care systems, comparing the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 44 key indicators or metrics of cost, accessibility, and outcome.
For overall health care, this year’s top-ranked state was Minnesota, with Iowa (2), Rhode Island (3), North Dakota (4), and Utah (5) rounding out the top five.
West Virginia was at the bottom of the rankings (51, accounting for the District of Columbia). The other states ranking the lowest are Louisiana (47), Alabama (48), Alaska (49), and Mississippi (50).
Most, fewest dentists
For the states with the most and fewest dentists, data indicated a three-way tie for most between the District of Columbia, Nebraska, and Virginia, with New Mexico and Maryland rounding out the top five.
The states with the fewest dentists per capita are North Dakota, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee.
Comparing the best state with the worst, there is a difference of four times the number of dentists per capita, according to WalletHub’s data.
Other health-care data of note captured and compared in the report includes physicians per capita, hospital beds per capita, and the percentage of insured adults and children.
Some “best versus worst” information from a WalletHub press release on the results includes:
- Utah has the lowest average monthly health-insurance premium, $431, which is 2.7 times lower than in West Virginia, the highest at $1,174.
- North Dakota has the lowest number of infant mortalities per 1,000 live births (3), a number three times lower than in Mississippi, with the highest number (9).
- Mississippi has the lowest percentage of at-risk adults without a routine doctor visit in the past two years, 10.8%, 1.9 times lower than in California, the highest at 20.30%.
Earlier in 2023, WalletHub released findings specific to states with the best and worst dental health, comparing the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 26 key indicators.
