Article Looks at Relationship Between Children's Receipt of Dental Checkups and Nondental Health Professional's Advice that Children Have Checkups
October 31, 2007
"These data illustrate that although children with differing levels of income did not differ significantly in having received advice from a nondentist health care provider to have a dental checkup, children with higher levels of income were more likely than were children with less income to actually seek a checkup," state the authors of an article published in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association. Although most Americans have benefited from dramatic improvements in oral health services during the past few years, these benefits have not reached evenly across all segments of society. Significant differences in oral health continue to remain for some population groups, with variations occurring according to sex, age, geographical location, income, race and ethnicity, education level, and insurance coverage status. This article examines the practices of nondentist health professionals as measured by their providing advice to children and adolescents to obtain a dental checkup and the relationship of this advice with actual dental checkups, dental checkups in the context of family income, and other sociodemographic characteristics by analyzing data from the 2003 Medical Panel Expenditures Survey (MEPS)conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Using MEPS data, the authors provide national estimates of the percentage of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population ages 2-17 who had a dental checkup and who received advice from a nondentist health professional to have a dental checkup.
Findings
The authors found that:
- Overall, 38% (n=9,516,000) of children and adolescents ages 2-17 from families with low incomes had a dental checkup in 2003, and 60% (n=24,225,000) of children and adolescents from families with middle or high incomes had a checkup
- Hispanic children were less likely than Black or white
children to have had a dental checkup
- Children whose parents had not graduated from high school were less likely than those whose parents had at least a high school degree to have had a dental checkup
- Children whose health status was fair or poor were less likely than those whose health status was excellent, very good, or good to have had a dental checkup
- Children who had only public health insurance or no health insurance were less likely than those who had only private insurance to have had a dental checkup
- Among children and adolescents who had been advised by a nondental health professional to have a dental checkup, checkup rates for children from families with middle or high incomes were higher than rates for children from families with low or middle incomes
Conclusion
The authors conclude that "our data suggest that additional effort is warranted to ensure that all children get needed or recommended dental care."
Chu M, Swels LE, Guay AH.
2007. The dental care of U.S. children: Access, use and referrals by nondentist providers, 2003.
Journal of the American Dental Association 138(10):1324-1331. Abstract
available here.
More
information
More information on this topic is available from the following MCH Library Resources:
Source
From the October 26, 2007 issue of MCH Alert: Tomorrow's Policy Today, produced by the Maternal and Child Health Library at the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health.
This and past issues of the MCH Alert are available online.
