Dental disease is a serious public health problem affecting all age groups, yet only 41 to 50 percent of Americans visit the dentist each year. Increasing dental demand to improve public oral health requires an understanding of the factors governing demand, but this knowledge base is incomplete. Relatively little is known about how providers affect dental demand, and models of dental service use have not been tested fully. The study's purpose is to close these knowledge gaps regarding the process and determinants of dental demand through the following aims: (1) to determine the effect of providers on dental demand and (2) to determine factor-level effects in a model of dental service use and expenditure. Subjects will be local dentists and 4,207 sampled Washington Education Association members and their dependents who are covered by Washington Dental Service (Delta Dental Plan). Data sources are WDS/WEA dental claims, a dentist mail survey and a telephone survey of WEA insureds.
In Aim 1, OLS will be used to estimate provider effects on patient demand within sampled dental practices.
In Aim 2, principal component analysis and OLS will be used to estimate additive, factor-level effects on dental demand among WEA insureds. Confirmatory factor analysis will be used to test causal models of dental demand. Study results should lead to both patient and provider interventions for improving public oral health.
