Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion, College of Dentistry, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Radiology and Medicine, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Gerodontology. 2021 Sep;38(3):252-258. doi: 10.1111/ger.12548. Epub 2021 Mar 14.
To assess the state of the literature in the United States quantifying the societal economic cost of poor oral health among older adults.
Proponents of a Medicare dental benefit have argued that addressing the growing need for dental care among the US older adult population will decrease costs from systemic disease and other economic costs due to oral disease. However, it is unclear what the current economic burden of poor oral health among older adults is in the United States.
We conducted a scoping review examining the cost of poor oral health among older adults and identified cost components that were included in relevant studies.
Other than oral cancer, no studies were found examining the economic costs of poor oral health among older adults (untreated tooth decay, gum disease, tooth loss and chronic disease/s). Only two studies examining the costs of oral cancer were found, but these studies did not assess the full economic cost of oral cancer from patient, insurer and societal perspectives.
Future work is needed to assess the full economic burden of poor oral health among older adults in the United States, and should leverage novel linkages between medical claims data, dental claims data and oral health outcomes data.
评估美国文献中定量评估老年人口腔健康不良的社会经济成本的现状。
支持联邦医疗保险牙科福利的人认为，解决美国老年人口日益增长的牙科护理需求将降低因口腔疾病导致的系统性疾病和其他经济成本。然而，目前尚不清楚美国老年人口腔健康不良的经济负担有多大。
我们进行了范围界定审查，研究了老年人口腔健康不良的成本，并确定了相关研究中包含的成本构成。
除了口腔癌，没有发现研究老年人口腔健康不良的经济成本（未经治疗的龋齿、牙周病、牙齿缺失和慢性疾病/口腔疾病）。只发现了两项研究口腔癌成本的研究，但这些研究没有从患者、保险公司和社会的角度评估口腔癌的全部经济成本。
未来需要评估美国老年人口腔健康不良的全部经济负担，并应利用医疗索赔数据、牙科索赔数据和口腔健康结果数据之间的新联系。
