I believe that all dentists should have ever hearing the phrase WHO recommends a ratio of one dentist for every 1,500 inhabitants. But what did you mean by that? That the ratio of 1: 9,000 is bad, then the ratio of 1: 167 is good? It makes little sense.
Paulo Capel Narvai wrote an article for the Journal's website saying that this data would be a legend. A kind of hoax that had begun even before the popularization of the Internet. He says:
It is not enough to combat the current health manpower training policy - there including dental human resources - the boring quote from the World Health Organization recommends one dentist to 1,500 people. (There are variations as 1 / 1,000 and 1 / 2,000). There are at least two errors in that: firstly, WHO does not recommend anything. At some point someone must have misread somewhere mistakenly cited the WHO and, since then, there has been a mechanical and uncritical repetition of this proportion. I never met the bibliographic reference in articles that mention such proportion. In WHO documents, to which I had access, I never read anything about it. Until some researchers uncover the mystery, it can be concluded that it is pure legend.
I confess that for a long time am not silent, looking for the origins of the legend, as found publications until 1979 with this information. Until you hit me the idea to look for where it started (or not): the WHO itself.
I found a statement from the organization that explains the whole thing:
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) does not recommend or establish optimal rates of number of beds per capita to be followed and enforced by its member countries. Nor define and recommend the desirable number of doctors, nurses and dentists per capita. There is also guidance on the optimal duration of medical appointments or a desirable number of patients seen per hour. Emphasis added.
So how it happened?
In the distant year 1972 took place the III Special Meeting of Health Ministers of the Americas, which resulted in Health Ten-Year Plan for the Americas. The assembled ministers agreed the goal of achieving 8 doctors, 2 dentists, 4.5 nurses and 14.5 nursing auxiliaries per 10,000 inhabitants. Only that.
The document is the result of a PAHO-WHO event, but is not an official resolution of the organization, which would as dentists should exist for every so many thousand inhabitants.
Even because in 1972 the reality was different, right? Right here a Vitor Pinto Article 1983 does not let me lie.
