Oral health and access to dental care in Australia — Comparisons by cardholder status and geographic region

Abstract

dwellers were defined as persons living in outer regional areas and remote dwellers were defined as persons living in remote or very remote areas.A government concession cardholder was defined as a person who at the time of the survey had a Pensioner Concession Card or a Health Care Card. ResultsWhere attention was drawn to differences by cardholder status and geographic region, the results were statistically significant at the 5 per cent level unless indicated otherwise. Dentate statusThe cumulative effects of dental decay and treatment practices are reflected in tooth loss.The percentage of adults aged 45 years and over who have lost all their natural teeth (i.e., are edentulous) is presented in Fig 1. Fig 1. Complete tooth loss by cardholder status and region, adults aged 45 years and over.Cardholders aged 45-59 years were four times as likely to be edentulous (16 per cent) as non-cardholders (4 per cent) this age.Complete tooth loss increased sharply across age with 35 per cent of cardholders and 20 per cent of noncardholders aged 60 years and over reporting they were edentulous.There were no regional differences in the prevalence of complete tooth loss for adults aged 45-59 years (6-7 per cent).Although rural dwellers aged 60 years and over reported higher rates of edentulism (35 per cent) than urban (29 per cent) and remote (27 per cent) dwellers this age, these differences were not significant. Oral health and access to dental care in Australia -Comparisons by cardholder status and geographic region