Luo Huabin, Xu Hua Daniel, Stancil Missy, Pardi Vanessa, Moss Mark E
Department of Public Health, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
Department of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
Public Health Rep. 2025 Apr 12:333549251314315. doi: 10.1177/00333549251314315.
People with disabilities face many challenges in accessing dental care. We compared disparities in dental care patterns (ie, dental visits for preventive care or treatment) between adults with and without hearing, seeing, mobility, self-care, cognition, or independent living disabilities.
We analyzed data from the 2015-2016 and 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). For outcome variables, we included self-reported dental visit (yes/no) and preventive dental visit (yes/no) within the past year. NHANES asked participants whether they had serious difficulty in conducting any of the following 6 activities: hearing, seeing, mobility, self-care, cognition, or independent living; participants who answered yes to any of these activities were classified as disabled. Our analytic sample included 11 288 adult respondents aged ≥20 years. We used multiple logistic regression to assess the association between disability status-measured by any disability (yes/no), the 6 types of disabilities (yes/no), and the number of disabilities-and the outcome variables, with ≤ .05 indicating significance.
Respondents with disabilities were less likely than those without a disability to have a preventive dental visit (adjusted odds ratio = 0.67; 95% CI, 0.59-0.77). Respondents with disabilities in mobility, self-care, or independent living were significantly less likely than those without any disability to have a dental visit. In addition, adults with more disabilities were significantly less likely than those without a disability to have a dental visit.
Access to preventive dental care was limited among people with disabilities. Further assistance, including providing dental insurance coverage, is needed to increase access to dental care among people with disabilities, especially those with mobility, self-care, and independent living disabilities.
残疾人在获得牙科护理方面面临诸多挑战。我们比较了有听力、视力、行动能力、自我护理、认知或独立生活残疾的成年人与无此类残疾的成年人在牙科护理模式（即预防性护理或治疗的牙科就诊）上的差异。
我们分析了2015 - 2016年和2017 - 2018年国家健康和营养检查调查（NHANES）的数据。对于结果变量，我们纳入了过去一年中自我报告的牙科就诊情况（是/否）和预防性牙科就诊情况（是/否）。NHANES询问参与者在进行以下6项活动中的任何一项时是否有严重困难：听力、视力、行动能力、自我护理、认知或独立生活；对这些活动中任何一项回答为是的参与者被归类为残疾。我们的分析样本包括11288名年龄≥20岁的成年受访者。我们使用多元逻辑回归来评估残疾状况（以任何残疾（是/否）、6种残疾类型（是/否）以及残疾数量衡量）与结果变量之间的关联，P≤0.05表示有显著性。
残疾受访者进行预防性牙科就诊的可能性低于无残疾受访者（调整后的比值比 = 0.67；95%置信区间，0.59 - 0.77）。有行动能力、自我护理或独立生活残疾的受访者进行牙科就诊的可能性显著低于无任何残疾的受访者。此外，残疾更多的成年人进行牙科就诊的可能性显著低于无残疾的成年人。
残疾人获得预防性牙科护理的机会有限。需要进一步提供援助，包括提供牙科保险覆盖范围，以增加残疾人，特别是有行动能力、自我护理和独立生活残疾的人获得牙科护理的机会。
