Preventive Dental Care Utilization in Asian Americans in Austin, Texas: Does Neighborhood Matter?

Hyunwoo Yoon, Yuri Jang, Kwangyul Choi and Hyun Kim
Additional contact information
Hyunwoo Yoon: School of Social Work, The Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
Yuri Jang: Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging, Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA
Kwangyul Choi: Haskayne School of Business, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Hyun Kim: Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-12

Abstract: Although dental care is an essential component of comprehensive health care, a substantial proportion of the U.S. population lacks access to it. Disparities in dental care are most pronounced in racial/ethnic minority communities. Given the rapid population growth of Asian Americans, as well as the growing attention of neighborhood-level effects on health care use, the present study examines how individual-level variables (i.e., age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, education, place of birth, length of stay in the U.S., dental insurance, and self-rated oral health) and neighborhood-level variables (i.e., poverty level, density of Asian population, dentist availability, and Asian-related resources and services) contribute to predicting the use of preventive dental care in a sample of Asian Americans in Austin, TX. This study adds to the growing literature on the effect of neighborhood-level factors on health care as sources of disparities. Those living in the Census area with higher level of available dentists were more likely to use preventive dental care services. Findings suggest the importance of the location (proximity or accessibility) to dental clinics. In a planning perspective for health care policy, identifying the neighborhood with limited healthcare services could be a priority to diminish the disparity of the access.

Keywords: neighborhood characteristics; preventive dental care utilization; Asian Americans (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2261/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2261/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2261-:d:175871

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().