CareQuest Institute’s latest analysis of dental care spending and income reveals that inequities in out-of-pocket expenditures between the poorest and wealthiest families in the US have continued to grow. In 2021, the most recent data available, poorer families paid 7.4 times more in out-of-pocket expenditures for dental care compared to high-income families.
Additional Key Findings
February 5, 2024
A particular moment stands out to Sarah Bedard Holland, the CEO of Virginia Health Catalyst, as when she realized she wanted to work in health care:
“When I was in high school, someone who was very close to me was diagnosed with AIDS, and I had the opportunity to see firsthand how my community reacted to that,” Bedard Holland says. “I saw how the health care system responded to him, his diagnosis, and ultimate death. . . . I think it was that general injustice and inequity that really cemented for me that there was an opportunity to change things.”
June 28, 2023
In early 2022, 700 Afghan refugees arrived in central Iowa, trying to settle into a community unlike any they’d ever seen. A strange landscape. A sea of unfamiliar faces. A new life.
And they had 90 days to get settled.
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent human diseases. And understanding the role of diet, demographics, and environmental factors in dental caries rates in children is essential to improve children’s health.
To better understand these factors, CareQuest Institute conducted a systematic review of four studies to examine the link between consumption of added sugar and the incidence and prevalence of dental caries in US children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Key findings include:
Barriers to adequate oral health care for millions of people in the US — barriers stemming from socioeconomic factors and environments that do not welcome everyone — continue to create inequities, according to CareQuest Institute’s fourth annual State of Oral Health Equity in America (SOHEA) survey.
The State of Oral Health Equity in America is the largest nationally representative survey about oral health with participation from more than 9,000 adults in the US.
Key findings include:
In an article in BMC Oral Health, researchers from CareQuest Institute and Texas A&M University College of Dentistry analyze the impact of structural and intermediary determinants on oral health outcomes. They found that adults who experienced any of the social determinants of health (SDOH) were more likely to have poor oral health outcomes.
Key findings include:
A visual report from CareQuest Institute reviews the relationship between incarceration and oral health, highlighting that 50% of incarcerated individuals had a dental problem during the time they were imprisoned.
“First and foremost,” the authors write, “we must prioritize strengthening the oral health care delivery system to incarcerated people.”
This peer-reviewed article in Preventing Chronic Disease, a journal sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examines the interrelationships between depression, oral health, and socioeconomic position based on results from a nationally representative survey of US adults.