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ALBANY, N.Y. (July 21, 2017) — Oral health workforce researchers at University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWS) have released an infographic designed to help policy makers better understand differences in dental hygiene scopes of practice across states. 

Scopes of practice for health professionals are defined in states’ laws and regulations, describing allowable services, settings and supervisory requirements. CHWS researchers examined 2014 scope-of-practice parameters for dental hygienists across the 50 states and found that that in states where dental hygiene scope of practice rules were more closely aligned with dental hygiene professional competence, there was a positive and statistically significant association with population oral health.