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Does early‐life family income influence later dental pain experience? A prospective 14‐year study
Author(s) -
Ghorbani Z,
Peres MA,
Liu P,
Mejia GC,
Armfield JM,
Peres KG
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
australian dental journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.701
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1834-7819
pISSN - 0045-0421
DOI - 10.1111/adj.12531
Subject(s) - medicine , confidence interval , prospective cohort study , odds ratio , toothache , poverty , demography , pediatrics , dentistry , surgery , sociology , economics , economic growth
Background The aim of this study was to investigate the association between early‐life family income and dental pain experience from childhood to early adulthood. Methods Data came from a 14‐year prospective study (1991/1992–2005/2006) carried out in South Australia, which included children and adolescents aged 4–17 years (N = 9875) at baseline. The outcome was dental pain experience obtained at baseline, 14 years later in adulthood and at a middle point of time. The main explanatory variable was early‐life family income collected at baseline. Results The prevalence of dental pain was 22.8% at baseline, 19.3% at ‘middle time’ and 39.3% at follow up. The proportion of people classified as ‘poor’ at baseline was 27.7%. Being poor early in life was significantly associated with dental pain at 14‐year follow up (odds ratio = 1.45; 95% confidence interval = 1.27–1.66). Conclusions Early‐life relative poverty is associated with more frequent dental pain across the 14‐year follow up and may be a key exposure variable for later dental conditions.