Is Accessibility to Dental Care Facilities in Rural Areas Associated with Number of Teeth in Elderly Residents?

Tsuyoshi Hamano, Miwako Takeda, Kazumichi Tominaga, Kristina Sundquist and Toru Nabika
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Tsuyoshi Hamano: Institute of General Education, Kyoto Sangyo University, Motoyama, Kamigamo, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8555, Japan
Miwako Takeda: Center for Community-Based Health Research and Education (CoHRE), Organization for the Promotion of Project Research, Shimane University, 223-8 Enya-cho, Izumo, Shimane 693-8501, Japan
Kazumichi Tominaga: Tominaga Dental Office, 97-3 Yamada, Ohnan-cho, Ohchi, Shimane 696-0313, Japan
Kristina Sundquist: Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Clinical Research Centre (CRC), Building 28, Floor 11, Jan Waldenströms Gata 35, Skåne University Hospital, SE-205 02 Malmö, Sweden
Toru Nabika: Department of Functional Pathology, Shimane University School of Medicine, 89-1 Enya-cho, Izumo, Shimane 693-8501, Japan

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-6

Abstract: Given that public transportation networks are less developed in rural than in urban areas, a lack of accessibility to dental care facilities could be a barrier to routine dental checkups. Thus, we hypothesized that the distance to the dental care facilities is a risk factor for tooth loss. The aim of this study was to test whether there is an association between the distance to dental care facilities, estimated by geographic information systems, and number of teeth, assessed by an oral examination, among elderly residents of a rural area in Japan. Data were collected in 2016 from a cross-sectional study conducted in Shimane prefecture, Japan. After excluding participants with missing data ( n = 21), we analyzed data from 710 participants. Of them, 40.6% were male and the mean (standard deviation) age was 67.4 (7.4) years. Further, 68.0% ( n = 483) had at least 20 teeth. We found that the distance to dental care facilities was significantly associated with the number of teeth (less than 20) (odds ratio = 1.07, 95% confidence interval = 1.01–1.12) after adjustment for potential confounders. This result suggested that individuals without easy access to dental care facilities may be important targets for dental care.

Keywords: dental careaccessibility; number of teeth; rural area; cross-sectional study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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