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https://hdl.handle.net/2440/95467
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Type: | Journal article |
Title: | Self-rated dental health and dental insurance: modification by household income |
Author: | Teusner, D. Anikeeva, O. Brennan, D. |
Citation: | Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 2014; 12(1):67-1-67-8 |
Publisher: | BioMed Central |
Issue Date: | 2014 |
ISSN: | 1477-7525 1477-7525 |
Statement of Responsibility: | Dana N Teusner, Olga Anikeeva and David S Brennan |
Abstract: | BACKGROUND: Previous studies have reported that socioeconomically disadvantaged Australians have poorer self-rated dental health (SRDH), are less likely to be insured for dental services and are less likely to have regular dental visits than their more advantaged counterparts. However, less is known about the associations between dental insurance and SRDH. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between SRDH and dental insurance status and to test if the relationship was modified by household income. METHODS: A random sample of 3,000 adults aged 30-61 years was drawn from the Australian Electoral Roll and mailed a self-complete questionnaire. Analysis included dentate participants. Bivariate associations were assessed between SRDH and insurance stratified by household income group. A multiple variable model adjusting for covariates estimated prevalence ratios (PR) of having good to excellent SRDH and included an interaction term for insurance and household income group. RESULTS: The response rate was 39.1% (n = 1,093). More than half (53.9%) of the participants were insured and 72.5% had good to excellent SRDH. SRDH was associated with age group, brushing frequency, insurance status and income group. Amongst participants in the $40,000- < $80,000 income group, the insured had a higher proportion reporting good to excellent SRDH (80.8%) than the uninsured (66.5%); however, there was little difference in SRDH by insurance status for those in the $120,000+ income group. After adjusting for covariates, there was a significant interaction (p < 0.05) between having insurance and income; there was an association between insurance and SRDH for adults in the $40,000- < $80,000 income group, but not for adults in higher income groups. CONCLUSIONS: For lower socio-economic groups being insured was associated with better SRDH, but there was no association for those in the highest income group. Insurance coverage may have the potential to improve dental health for low income groups. |
Keywords: | Self-rated dental health Oral health Dental insurance Income |
Rights: | © 2014 Teusner et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
DOI: | 10.1186/1477-7525-12-67 |
Grant ID: | http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/627037 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1031310 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/565321 |
Published version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-12-67 |
Appears in Collections: | Aurora harvest 7 Dentistry publications |
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File | Description | Size | Format | |
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hdl_95467.pdf | Published version | 274.71 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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