One of the most distinguishing aspects of the dental industry is how it performs in economic downturns. This is when the ability of most companies to generate a profit or even cover costs, is significantly impaired due to a massive decrease in demand.

Industry experts with extensive investments maintain that the dental industry is recession-resilient, making their case by providing strong anecdotal evidence from past recessions. The data supports this claim: Adults’ propensity to seek dental care is only impacted when wealth decreases by greater than 50%. In fact, the data shows the utilization of dental insurance benefits (and thus dental revenues) actually increases substantially during a recession. This increase happens early on as people rush for service in anticipation of coverage disruption.

It’s always important to understand how investments might perform in different economic environments, but this topic is particularly relevant today as we experience considerable uncertainty due to the ongoing global pandemic. The initial findings on dental industry resilience are encouraging in adding early-stage dental companies to any investment portfolio. There are more factors that strengthen convictions to choose an oral health venture fund like the one Revere Partners.

The US Bureau of labor statistics reported that the demand for dental services will increase as the population ages and as more and more research links oral health to overall health. This will result in a 3 percent growth in employed dentists from 2019 to 2029.

What’s more, the Biden Administration aims to expand upon the Affordable Care Act to improve access to healthcare for those without insurance. This means more individuals walking through dental office doors—causing a patient upturn during an economic downturn.

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