African-Americans Get a Raw Deal on Dental Care?

The fact that African Americans tend to get poorer dental care in comparison to white Americans peaked the interest of researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the College of Dental Medicine.  The researchers surveyed African American adults with recent oral health symptoms.

The poll was conducted through a qualitative survey of 118 men and women.  Despite the fact that most of adults (75 percent) in the study claimed to have at least some type of dental insurance coverage, it was appreciably limited to Medicaid (50%) only 21% claimed to have a private coverage and 4 % noted other types of dental insurance.

"For the 25% of respondents who reported having no dental insurance coverage, the costs of dental care and the lack of insurance coverage were consistently noted as critical barriers to obtaining quality dental treatment of their dental symptoms," said Eric Schrimshaw, PhD, assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School, and first author.  "Even among those who had some dental insurance, such as Medicaid -- noted that it was often not enough to eliminate the obstacles to obtaining needed dental treatment," stated Dr. Schrimshaw.

For example, one person with a toothache said that it is too difficult to pay for the out-of-pocket costs, even having dental coverage.  "The dental plan is only going to pay for so much, and then there are a lot of out-of-pocket expenses… If you don't have that dental care, you just go to the dentist in an emergency, if a tooth needs to come out or whatever.  That's the only time you go."

According to the author's report, when participants could visit a dentist having the limited insurance, the majority of them believed that they got much poorer quality of care because of their lack of private insurance.  For example, one of the participants noted the following: "I feel as though they didn't give me the best service that they could, and that's only because I didn't have the money or medical coverage to pay for it.  It's all about money, and they showed it . . . you can see how they treat you differently."

Dr. Schrimshaw added that "The lack of affordable dental care and insurance coverage lead many of our participants to postpone or do without dental treatment, often for years.  However, these untreated symptoms inevitably get more severe, resulting in people requiring treatment in the emergency department at a much greater public expense than if they had been provided dental treatment when the symptoms first occurred.  Further, given the research evidence on the relationship between untreated oral symptoms and systemic health problems such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, providing better oral health treatment may not only reduce suffering but also may prevent expensive physical health problems in the future."

Source: The American Journal of Public Health