DENTAL-HEALTH ATTITUDES AMONG DENTATE BLACK-AND-WHITE ADULTS

OBJECTIVES. Blacks and poor persons share a greater burden of oral dis ease and are less likely to seek dental care on a regular basis. The r ole of dental attitudes and knowledge of services on this circumstance is unclear. The authors quantified group differences in dental attitu des and knowledge of services and related them to regularity of dental care use. METHODS. As part of the baseline phase of The Florida Denta l Cave Study, a longitudinal study of oral health, 873 respondents who had at least one tooth and who were 45 years or older participated fo r an interview and a clinical dental examination. Dental care use, sev en dental attitudinal constructs, and knowledge of dental services wer e queried. RESULTS. Forty-five percent of respondents reported going t o a dentist only when they have a problem, and 17% of respondents had not seen a dentist in more than 5 years. Ten percent of respondents re ported that they had at least one permanent tooth removed by someone o ther than a dentist (typically, the respondent himself). Blacks and po or persons had more negative attitudes toward dental care and dental h ealth and were less knowledgeable of dental services. Multivariate ana lyses suggested that dental attitudes were important to understanding the use of dental care services for this diverse group of adults, and that race and poverty contributed independently to dental care use eve n with dental attitudes taken into account. CONCLUSIONS. Dental attitu des contribute to race and poverty differences in dental care use amon g adults. The persistence of race and poverty effects with attitudes t aken into account suggests that additional explanatory factors contrib ute as well. These differences may contribute to more prevalent and se vere oral health decrements among the same adults who also are more li kely to suffer from other health decrements.