Nearly 20 million Americans annually visit a dentist but not a general healthcare provider, according to an NYU study published today in the American Journal of Public Health.
The study, conducted by a nursing-dental research team at NYU, is the first of its kind to determine the proportion of Americans who are seen annually by a dentist but not by a general healthcare provider.
This finding suggests dentists can play a crucial role as health care practitioners in the front-line defense of identifying systemic disease which would otherwise go undetected in a significant portion of the population, say the researchers.
Dentists on the front line of health
“For these and other individuals, dental professionals are in a key position to assess and detect oral signs and symptoms of systemic health disorders that may otherwise go unnoticed, and to refer patients for follow-up care,” said Dr. Shiela Strauss, an associate professor of nursing at the NYU College of Nursing and co-director of the statistics and data management core for NYU’s Colleges of Nursing and Dentistry.
During the course of a routine dental examination, dentists and dental hygienists, as trained healthcare providers, can take a patient’s health history, check blood pressure, and use direct clinical observation and X-rays to detect risk for systemic conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
The NYU research team examined the most recent available data, which came from a nationally representative subsample of 31,262 adults and children who participated in the Department of Health & Human Services 2008 annual National Health Interview Survey, a health status study of the U.S. population, which at that time consisted of 304,375,942 individuals. Physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants were among those categorized as general health care providers for the purposes of the survey.
When extrapolated to the U.S. population, 26 percent of children did not see a general health care provider. Yet over one-third of this group, representing nearly seven million children, did visit a dentist at least once during that year, according to survey results.
Among the adults, one quarter did not visit a general healthcare provider, yet almost a quarter — nearly 13 million Americans — did have at least one dental visit. When combined, adults and children who had contact only with dentists represent nearly 20 million people.
Ninety-three percent of the children and 85 percent of the adults had some form of health insurance, suggesting that while many of those who did not interact with a general healthcare provider may have had access to general health care, they opted not to seek it.
Coauthors on the study included Dr. Michael C. Alfano, executive vice president of New York University and former dean of the NYU College of Dentistry; Dr. Donna Shelley, clinical associate professor of cariology and comprehensive care at the NYU College of Dentistry and clinical associate professor of medicine and associate director of research at the NYU Langone Medical Center Division of General Internal Medicine; and Dr. Terry Fulmer, dean of the Northeastern University Bouvé College of Health Sciences, and former professor and dean of the NYU College of Nursing.
About New York University College of Dentistry: Founded in 1865, New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD) is the third oldest and the largest dental school in the US, educating more than 8 percent of all dentists. NYUCD has a significant global reach and provides a level of national and international diversity among its students that is unmatched by any other dental school.
