Dental health and access to dental care for ethnic minorities in Sweden

Objective. To describe access to dental care in a population-based sample o f foreign-born Swedish residents in relation to dental health. Design. The study was based on data from the Immigrant Survey of Living Con ditions in four minority study groups consisting of a total of 1,898 Swedis h residents born in Poland, Chile, Turkey and Iran aged 27-60. An age-match ed study group of 2,477 Swedish-born residents from the Survey of Living Co nditions of 1996 was added as a comparison group. The study also included 2 ,228 children aged 3-15 years in the minority households and 2,892 children in the households of the Swedish-born study group. Results. The risk of poor dental health was higher in all four minority stu dy groups than for the Swedish-born study group after adjusting for socio-e conomic variables. In the adult minority study groups the adjusted odds rat ios (ORs) for having prostheses and problems with chewing was 6.3 (4.3-9.1) and 2.7 (1.8-4.3), respectively, for the Polish-born, 4.8 (3.3-7.1) and 3. 2 (2.1-4.9) for the Chilean-born, 4.6 (3.1-6.9) and 4.8 (3.6-7.2) for the T urkish-born, and 2.7 (1.5-4.8) and 6.5 (4.1-10.3) for the Iranian-born comp ared with the Swedish-born. In the child study group all four minority grou ps had an increased risk of caries ranging from OR 1.6 (1.3-2.1) in the Chi lean group to 2.5 (2.0-3.0) in the Turkish group compared with the children with Swedish-born parents. The adults in all four minority study groups mo re often lacked regular treatment by a dentist than Swedish-born residents. The OR for not having been treated by a dentist during the 2 years precedi ng the interview ranged from 1.9 (1.4-2.6) in the Polish-born study group t o 3.0 (2.3-4.0) in the Chilean-born study group after adjustment for socio- economic factors and general health. Conclusion. This study demonstrates that adults in minority populations in Sweden use less dental care despite having greater needs of dental treatmen t than the majority population. This inequity calls for action in health po licy and preventive dental health programmes.