Other
Jessica T. McAuliffe, DMD (she/her/hers)
Pediatric Dental Resident
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Tegwyn Brickhouse, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Carol Caudill, DDS
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Jayakumar Jayaraman, BDS, MDS, FDSRCS, MS, PhD (he/him/his)
Associate Professor
VCU Pediatric Dentistry
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Tiffany Williams, DDS
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
RICHMOND, Virginia, United States
Tegwyn Brickhouse, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia, United States
Purpose: The aim of this analysis of survey data was to assess the influence of living within a perceived food desert as a predictor of oral health problems among children of East Henrico County, Virginia.
Methods: Survey participants were recruited by community members and completed an online questionnaire. The independent variable was residing in a neighborhood with perceived limited access to affordable fresh produce/healthy groceries. The outcome was the history of a child experiencing dental pain. Multivariable logistic regression was used to model the association between the self-reported access to healthy fruits and vegetables and history of dental pain for the child controlling for child and family-level influences of oral health.
Results: Results from 374 families demonstrated a significant association between access to affordable produce/healthy groceries and a child experiencing dental pain (P-value= .0325) along with recent visit to dentist (P-value=.005) and ethnicity (P-value=.0049) at the child-level, and parent’s education (P-value = .0021) at the family-level. At the community level, those who lived in perceived food deserts had 2.22 times increased odds of reporting dental pain for a child than those considered to not live in food deserts (95% CI: 1.07-4.62).
Conclusion: An association was found between access to affordable produce and children experiencing dental pain. Additional population-based studies measuring access to healthy food and food insecurity would be beneficial to improve our understanding of its impact on oral health.