CHICAGO--The Academy of General Dentistry has announced that an updated version of the organization's statistical map entitled "The Economic Contribution of the Dentistry Profession in 2005" is now available.
This resource identifies how many workers are employed in the dental profession in each congressional district and state, as well as the annual payroll of these employees. The data demonstrates how much the dentistry profession contributes to each congressional district and state, both in terms of number employed and payroll totals.
The innovative map can be found on the AGD's Web site at www.agd.org/advocacy.asp, under the link "AGD's Employment Statistical Map." Every state has its individual employment data organized by congressional district; data is viewed simply by choosing a state of interest.
Copies of statistics for each congressional district have been delivered to the office of every United States Senator and Representative, along with a packet of AGD fact sheets, highlighting its legislative goals for the 110th Congress and including adequate funding for Title VII health professions programs.
"The AGD first released this data broken out by congressional district last year," explained AGD President Bruce DeGinder, DDS. "It was so informative and useful to legislators and staffers on the Hill, that we updated all the statistics using 2005 numbers. We only ask lawmakers to consider these constituents as they make decisions on legislative initiatives that not only impact the dental profession, but general dentists and their patients as well."
AGD compiled this data from the 2005 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, and Occupational Employment Statistics Survey. The county employment data was converted into congressional districts, and then added together to determine the number of oral health care workers who are employed in each district.
"Our organization spends a lot of time in Congress advocating for issues of importance to general dentists, and I continually get the question about how many constituents in a particular district and/or state are employed in the dentistry profession," said AGD's Washington Lobbyist Janet Kopenhaver. "That was why we embarked on this project last year, and continue to update our map with new totals as they are released by the federal government."
Nationwide, the dentistry profession employs over 772,000 workers. Total wages paid to dentistry professionals is in excess of $31 billion.
