Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.

Dental care utilization is known to have a strong socioeconomic gradient, with lower socioeconomic groups utilizing less of these services despite having poorer dental health. However, less is known about the utilization of dental services in the population concurrently in the public and private sec...

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Autores principales:	Mikko Nurminen, Jenni Blomgren, Hennamari Mikkola
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/fab82a3f1f0c4a85aa6d94404a43113a
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:fab82a3f1f0c4a85aa6d94404a43113a2021-12-02T20:18:44ZSocioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0255126https://doaj.org/article/fab82a3f1f0c4a85aa6d94404a43113a2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255126https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Dental care utilization is known to have a strong socioeconomic gradient, with lower socioeconomic groups utilizing less of these services despite having poorer dental health. However, less is known about the utilization of dental services in the population concurrently in the public and private sectors in different socioeconomic groups. Additionally, evidence on how different sectors contribute to the overall socioeconomic gradient in dental care utilization is scarce. This study examines visits and absence of visits to public and private dentists in the years 2017-2018 by education, occupational class and income. Comprehensive register data was collected from the total population aged 25 and over in the city of Oulu, Finland (N = 118,397). The data were analyzed with descriptive methods and with multinomial logistic regressions for the probability of visits and with negative binomial regressions for the number of visits, adjusted for sociodemographic covariates. The results showed a clear socioeconomic gradient for the probability of visits according to income and education: the higher the income and the higher the education, the more likely was a visit to a dentist-especially a private dentist-during the two-year period. Similar results were obtained for the number of visits. Higher socioeconomic status was less associated with public dentist visits. While those with the lowest income visited public dentists more frequently than private dentists, their overall visits fell below that of others. Adjusted estimates by occupation did not show a clear socioeconomic gradient. The socioeconomic inequality in dentist visits in a country having a universally covered public dental care scheme puts a challenge for decision makers in designing an equal dental health care system. Experimenting with lower co-payments is a possible option.Mikko NurminenJenni BlomgrenHennamari MikkolaPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 8, p e0255126 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Mikko Nurminen Jenni Blomgren Hennamari Mikkola Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
description	Dental care utilization is known to have a strong socioeconomic gradient, with lower socioeconomic groups utilizing less of these services despite having poorer dental health. However, less is known about the utilization of dental services in the population concurrently in the public and private sectors in different socioeconomic groups. Additionally, evidence on how different sectors contribute to the overall socioeconomic gradient in dental care utilization is scarce. This study examines visits and absence of visits to public and private dentists in the years 2017-2018 by education, occupational class and income. Comprehensive register data was collected from the total population aged 25 and over in the city of Oulu, Finland (N = 118,397). The data were analyzed with descriptive methods and with multinomial logistic regressions for the probability of visits and with negative binomial regressions for the number of visits, adjusted for sociodemographic covariates. The results showed a clear socioeconomic gradient for the probability of visits according to income and education: the higher the income and the higher the education, the more likely was a visit to a dentist-especially a private dentist-during the two-year period. Similar results were obtained for the number of visits. Higher socioeconomic status was less associated with public dentist visits. While those with the lowest income visited public dentists more frequently than private dentists, their overall visits fell below that of others. Adjusted estimates by occupation did not show a clear socioeconomic gradient. The socioeconomic inequality in dentist visits in a country having a universally covered public dental care scheme puts a challenge for decision makers in designing an equal dental health care system. Experimenting with lower co-payments is a possible option.
format	article
author	Mikko Nurminen Jenni Blomgren Hennamari Mikkola
author_facet	Mikko Nurminen Jenni Blomgren Hennamari Mikkola
author_sort	Mikko Nurminen
title	Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
title_short	Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
title_full	Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
title_fullStr	Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
title_full_unstemmed	Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
title_sort	socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in finland: register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/fab82a3f1f0c4a85aa6d94404a43113a
work_keys_str_mv	AT mikkonurminen socioeconomicdifferencesinutilizationofpublicandprivatedentalcareinfinlandregisterbasedevidenceonapopulationaged25andover AT jenniblomgren socioeconomicdifferencesinutilizationofpublicandprivatedentalcareinfinlandregisterbasedevidenceonapopulationaged25andover AT hennamarimikkola socioeconomicdifferencesinutilizationofpublicandprivatedentalcareinfinlandregisterbasedevidenceonapopulationaged25andover
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Socioeconomic differences in utilization of public and private dental care in Finland: Register-based evidence on a population aged 25 and over.

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