Discipline of Dental Public Health, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Health Policy. 2013 Jan;109(1):88-96. doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2012.09.016. Epub 2012 Oct 23.
Policy advocates in North America argue that access to dental care for low income and unemployed populations can help improve the chances of acquiring a job or attaining a better job, thus having positive economic and social benefits. Our objective is to review the evidence in support of the policy hypothesis that timely access to dental care can improve employment outcomes.
A systematic review was conducted by searching various scientific databases and search engines. Key words included Dental Care, Dental Intervention, Social Welfare, Unemployment, Employment, and Job.
Seven articles were considered eligible for this review. They varied in study design, target population and intervention studied. Overall, they presented low levels of evidence due to small sample sizes, lack of control groups, combined interventions or being based on anecdotal reports.
There is a limited amount of evidence concerning the assumption that dental care can improve employment outcomes. The scarcity of well-conducted studies and the poor quality of evidence makes it difficult to judge the effect of dental care on employment outcomes. More studies need to be conducted in order to confirm or dismiss this generalized assumption.
北美的政策倡导者认为，为低收入和失业人群提供牙科保健服务有助于增加他们获得工作或更好工作的机会，从而带来积极的经济和社会效益。我们的目的是回顾支持这一政策假设的证据，即及时获得牙科保健服务可以改善就业结果。
通过搜索各种科学数据库和搜索引擎进行系统评价。关键词包括牙科保健、牙科干预、社会福利、失业、就业和工作。
有 7 篇文章被认为符合本综述的标准。它们在研究设计、目标人群和研究干预措施方面存在差异。总体而言，由于样本量小、缺乏对照组、联合干预或基于传闻报告，这些研究的证据水平较低。
关于牙科保健可以改善就业结果的假设，证据有限。由于精心设计的研究和证据质量较差，因此难以判断牙科保健对就业结果的影响。需要开展更多的研究来证实或推翻这一普遍假设。
