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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Arif Ahmed, BDS, PhD, MSPH, Health and Kinesiology, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8076, Statesboro, GA 30460-8076, (912)486-7753, aahmed@gasou.edu and Herbert M Hazelkorn, DDS, PhD, Health Policy and Administration, SPH, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1601 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60612.
We studied 448 employees of a large midwestern state university enrolled in a fee-for-service (FFS) or a managed-care (HMO) dental benefit plan offered by the State. The employees responded to a 37-item self-administered questionnaire on their dental benefit plan characteristics, dental services use history, dental visit characteristics and satisfaction, oral health beliefs and habits, general health status, and demographic characteristics. There is a monthly premium and an annual deductible in the FFS plan, but no premium or deductible in the HMO plan. After controlling for sociodemographic variables, there was no difference in preventive dental visit by plan type. Oral health beliefs, travel time cost, race, and having a usual source of dental care were significant predictors of at least one preventive dental visit during the previous twelve months. Income was not a significant predictor and having a usual source of dental care was the most robust predictor of preventive dental visit. The study highlights the importance of dental insurance in providing a usual source of dental care and discusses the implications of the findings particularly in light the of recent trend of decline in employer-provided dental benefits. Suggestions for future research and policy guidelines for employee benefits formulation and dental services planning are provided.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participants of this session will be able to
Keywords: Prevention, Oral Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.