Forecasting for the number of individual per dentist in Turkey; Comparison of Box-Jenkins and Brown Exponential Smoothing Estimation Methods.

Oral and dental diseases and the fight against these diseases are a difficult and costly issue for our country and most of the world countries. Protective and informative dentistry practices may be realized with the prospective realistic planning of Dentist personnel trained at adequate number and Oral Dental Health services. Attaching importance to the protective services for development of health services are the leading among the issues, which the policy-makers are required to emphasize with caution. The aim of this study is to model the series of number of individual per dentist personnel in Turkey between the years of 1951-2016 with Box-Jenkins and Brown Exponential Smoothing methods, and to provide these forecast models derived to guide the policymakers. Number of individual per dentist personnel is calculated prospectively in this study and values expected until 2023 are found with Box Jenkins and Brown Exponential Smoothing methods frequently used in making prospective forecasts. Calculations of these two models are compared in terms of decision-making criteria and it is concluded that Brown Exponential Smoothing model produces more coherent results than Box Jenkins model on behalf of making prospective forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]