Other
Sameha Abdulbaki, DMD
Pediatric Dental Resident
Children's Hospital Colorado, Aurora, CO
Children's Hospital Colorado
Aurora, Colorado, United States
Tamanna Tiwari, BDS, MDS, MPH
Program Director, DDS/MPH program
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Aurora, Colorado, United States
Tamanna Tiwari, BDS, MDS, MPH
Program Director, DDS/MPH program
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Aurora, Colorado, United States
Cristina Leon-Pineda, DMD, MPH, MSDS
Children's Hospital Colorado
Aurora, Colorado, United States
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate associations between use of preventive and restorative dental services and specific social determinants of health in the adolescent population.
Methods: Retrospective data from 2021 was extracted from the BigMouth dental data repository. This study utilized the Current Dental Terminology procedure codes for data extraction. The outcome variables were preventive and restorative dental services. Associations were tested between the outcome variable and independent variables (payment methods, and race/ethnicity, and interaction of race and ethnicity). A multilevel multinomial logistic regression was run with all predictors in the model.
Results: Data was extracted for 8004 adolescents who either had preventive or restorative service or both. 92.9% of adolescents had preventive service, 43.1% had restorative services, and 36% had both services. When comparing insurance coverage, a higher proportion of adolescents who had private insurance coverage tend to have preventive dental care than those who had public insurance (93.7% vs. 87.2%; P < .001). Adolescents with private insurance were 1.96 (P = .0001) times more likely to get preventive service compared to adolescents with public insurance. Hispanic adolescents were 1.74 (P=.0177) times more like use preventive services than non-Hispanic black and 2.06 (P=.0005) times more likely to use preventive service compared to non-Hispanic white adolescents
Conclusions: Both insurance type and race and ethnicity influence the utilization of preventive and restorative services in the adolescent population. The findings of this study can be utilized to increase advocacy for the establishment of equitable dental care for all adolescents.