Oral health is central to physical and psychosocial well-being. Oral health deficits affect nutritional status through constraining dietary choices, and they can impair social interaction and integration due to pain, communication disorders, and embarrassment. While advances in preventive dentistry over the past half century have been dramatic, disparities in oral health continue to exist. Older rural adults are a particularly high risk population for oral health disparities; many have had limited access to oral health care services, high poverty rates and low socioeconomic status which place them at risk for oral health deficits relative to their urban and suburban counterparts. The high proportion of ethnic minorities among rural elders in some parts of the US makes disparities in oral health status within rural populations likely. This competing continuation application (R01 AG13469), which builds on eight years of community-based research on nutritional self-management and nutritional status in two rural, multi-ethnic North Carolina counties, has the overall goal of documenting the impact of oral health on multiple domains of life for rural adults > 60 years by accomplishing four specific aims: (1) to document the oral health status of older rural adults in a multi-ethnic population, and its association with gender, ethnicity, and other demographic predictors; (2) to delineate the nutritional impact of deficits in oral health, including food selection, food preparation, food consumption, nutrient intake, and nutritional status; (3) to document the relationship of oral health to social functioning, including communication and social interaction; and (4) to assess the impact of oral health on perceived well-being/quality of life (QoL, directly and as mediated by dietary intake and social functioning. Building on a foundation of community ethnography begun in 1996, this project will achieve its specific aims using a multi-method approach that integrates the results of qualitative research with older adults (in-depth interviews with 36 older adults experiencing oral health deficits) with a cross-sectional random epidemiological survey (n=750) and clinical examination (dentate only, n=450) of oral health and its consequences for nutritional status and quality of life among a tri-ethnic (African American, Native American and white) largely disadvantaged population of older adults.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DE017092-09
Application #
7023923
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-CIHB (01))
Program Officer
Nowjack-Raymer, Ruth
Project Start
1996-09-30
Project End
2009-01-31
Budget Start
2006-02-01
Budget End
2007-01-31
Support Year
9
Fiscal Year
2006
Total Cost
$456,904
Indirect Cost
Name
Wake Forest University Health Sciences
Department
Public Health & Prev Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
937727907
City
Winston-Salem
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27157
Arcury, Thomas A; Chen, Haiying; Savoca, Margaret R et al. (2013) Ethnic variation in oral health and social integration among older rural adults. J Appl Gerontol 32:302-23
Arcury, Thomas A; Savoca, Margaret R; Anderson, Andrea M et al. (2012) Dental care utilization among North Carolina rural older adults. J Public Health Dent 72:190-7
Bell, Ronny A; Arcury, Thomas A; Anderson, Andrea M et al. (2012) Dental anxiety and oral health outcomes among rural older adults. J Public Health Dent 72:53-9
Savoca, Margaret R; Arcury, Thomas A; Leng, Xiaoyan et al. (2011) Impact of denture usage patterns on dietary quality and food avoidance among older adults. J Nutr Gerontol Geriatr 30:86-102
Quandt, Sara A; Savoca, Margaret R; Leng, Xiaoyan et al. (2011) Dry mouth and dietary quality in older adults in north Carolina. J Am Geriatr Soc 59:439-45
Quandt, Sara A; Chen, Haiying; Bell, Ronny A et al. (2010) Food avoidance and food modification practices of older rural adults: association with oral health status and implications for service provision. Gerontologist 50:100-11
Savoca, Margaret R; Arcury, Thomas A; Leng, Xiaoyan et al. (2010) Association between dietary quality of rural older adults and self-reported food avoidance and food modification due to oral health problems. J Am Geriatr Soc 58:1225-32
Savoca, Margaret R; Arcury, Thomas A; Leng, Xiaoyan et al. (2010) Severe tooth loss in older adults as a key indicator of compromised dietary quality. Public Health Nutr 13:466-74
Arcury, Thomas A; Bell, Ronny A; Anderson, Andrea M et al. (2009) Oral health self-care behaviors of rural older adults. J Public Health Dent 69:182-9
Bell, Ronny A; Arcury, Thomas A; Chen, Haiying et al. (2009) Use of tobacco products among rural older adults: prevalence of ever use and cumulative lifetime use. Addict Behav 34:662-7

Showing the most recent 10 out of 13 publications