Despite the significant advances in the understanding and prevention of dental caries there has been little change in the high prevalence of dental caries in low income children. Additionally, children from this group, who need care the most, are the ones that are least likely to obtain it. Previous research has found that mothers' attitudes and beliefs are important determinants in the oral health status and dental care utilization of their children. To our knowledge there are no studies of the association between mothers' and children's oral health status. We hypothesize that: mothers who have high caries levels will have children with high caries; mothers who report irregular dental care utilization will have children who have irregular dental care; and mothers who have perceived dental needs will report needs for their children.
The specific aims of this study are: 1 To compare oral health outcomes (dental caries, mother's missing teeth, and self-assessed oral health status) of mothers and their children. 2. To compare dental care utilization (length since last dental visits, reasons for visit and reason for lack of visit in the past year) between mothers and their children. 3. To determine if there is an association between oral health needs (unmet needs, perceived needs) of mothers and their children; and to compare mothers' perceived with children's normative needs. Data for this project come from linked data for mothers and their child from the NHANES III (children ages 2- 6) and from the 1999 National Health Interview Survey (children ages 2- 6). After gathering descriptive statistics, bivariate relationships between mothers' and their child's health outcomes will be calculated. Then logistic regression models will be fit to determine predictors of children's outcomes, dental care utilization, and dental needs. These models will be determined following Andersen's model of health outcomes (1995), where mother's and child's characteristics (such as race/ethnicity, poverty status, dental insurance, etc) determine use of oral health care and, they all, determine oral health outcomes. A positive association between mothers and children oral health status, care utilization and perceived needs will suggest that intervening with mothers may reduce dental caries prevalence in their children by several mechanisms. Thus, identifying maternal health behaviors and related oral health status are not only important for understanding the prevalence of dental disease in their children, but are important for designing prevention plans to reduce oral health disparities and enable the objectives of Health People 2010. ? ? ?
| Dye, Bruce A; Vargas, Clemencia M; Lee, Jessica J et al. (2011) Assessing the relationship between children's oral health status and that of their mothers. J Am Dent Assoc 142:173-83 |
