Around one-third of young adults who took part in a recent study said they haven’t been to the dentist within the past year. Over 127,886 people took part in this study, which was published in “Frontiers in Oral Health” and is the first to compare people across social and economic classes, according to a press release.
Those who were 18–35 years old, the study said, were most likely to have not gotten oral health care (32.2%). Along with this, they also reported having: worse mental health, emotional problems and “difficulties in concentrating or remembering.”
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Young adults who didn’t go to the dentist also didn’t go to the doctor at higher rates. Many, 69%, said they weren’t able to afford insurance copayments. Not having insurance at all, or an annual income that was less than $35,000, were both contributing factors in this.
“Rather than treating mental or physical health as outcomes, we include them as contextual features to better understand the broader landscape of unmet oral health needs,” researchers said.
Yau-Hua Yu, the study’s author and an associate professor of periodontology at the School of Dental Medicine, said in the release that the trend of young adults not visiting a dentist is “very troubling.”
Yu’s own research has touched on the negative consequences of not getting dental health care — including a shortened life expectancy. This research, Yu said, reinforces how important it is to address the policy gap in dental and health insurance.
“Our findings show the urgent need to integrate dental care into overall health care,” Yu said. “They also suggest that interventions must be tailored not only to income, but to life stage and cumulative disadvantage. The desperate need to bring routine preventative dental care to younger adults — who will be our prime source for societal productivity — should not be ignored.”
