The Effects of Distance to Dentists and Dentist Supply on Children's Use of Dental Care.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To examine the effects of distance to dentists and dentist supply on dental services use among children with Medicaid coverage in Iowa.

Data source

Iowa Medicaid claims for enrolled children between 2000 and 2009.

Study design

The study sample included 41,554 children (providing 158,942 child-year observations) who were born in Iowa between 2000 and 2006 and enrolled from birth in the Iowa Medicaid program. Children were followed through 2009. We used logistic regression to simultaneously examine the effects of distance (miles to nearest dentist) and county-level dentist supply on a broad range of dental services controlling for key confounders. Additional models only used within-child variation over time to remove unobservable time-invariant confounders.

SUBMITTER: Wehby GL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5583306 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature