Intergenerational caries in a Midwestern Urban Federally Qualified Health Clinic (FQHC)

Dental caries among immigrants vary widely but rates are often lower than their US-born counterparts. This “healthy immigrant” advantage is often lost after limited US residency, and caries tend to be higher among children of immigrants.  To determine the potential etiological factors responsible for these changes, it is important to control for known hereditary factors associated with caries rates. This study explored caries rates among first and second generation immigrants by selecting child-mother pairs identified by maternal primary language, race, and ethnicity.

Caries experience (defs, DMFS) was abstracted from dental records of child-mother pairs in a Midwestern urban FQHC. Mother’s primary language included those prevalent in the area included Somali, Spanish, Vietnamese, Hmong, English (further divided by race). Analysis used paired sample t-tests for child-mother total caries experience, and unpaired t-tests to determine caries differences between both child and mother groups.

Children of Hmong mothers had the lowest (3.75) and children of English-speaking Asian mothers had the highest caries experience (9.82). Mothers with the lowest caries experience were English-Asians (12.88) and mothers with highest caries were Hmong (54.13). Differences in caries rates (p<0.05) were found between all child-mother pairs except those with English-Asian mothers. Child between group differences existed for those of English-White mothers (reference) and both Somali (p= 0.03) and English-Asian (p= 0.02) mothers.  Mother between group differences were found between English-White mothers (reference group) and Hmong mothers (p= 0.02).

Identification of acculturation, lifestyle and environmental factors associated with familial caries are needed to implement appropriate preventive interventions.