Economic Inequalities in Elderly Oral Health-Related Quality of Life: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Objectives: To seek and investigate the relationship between oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of the elderly population as measured by the OHIP-14 survey of different countries with respect to dental personnel density and Gross Domestic Product per capita purchasing power parity (GDP-PPP). Methods: The study was conducted using two electronic databases (PubMed and Google Scholar). Only studies presenting data regarding OHRQoL of the elderly population measured with validated OHIP-14 survey were included. Those studies without a clear indication of age sampling method or OHIP-14 calculations were excluded. Information on the dental personnel data was extracted from the World Health Organization database, whereas GDP-PPP data was access through the World Bank website. Results: Twelve papers that were found to fit the criteria were included in the analysis. Within the included countries, OHIP-14 scores of the elderly population demonstrated a decreasing trend with an increasing GDP-PPP. Moreover, a correlation could be established between the number of dental personnel and GDP-PPP of the corresponding years (log-log plot, R2=0.754). A decreasing trend of OHIP-14 scores was observed for an increasing density of dental personnel but they are weakly correlated (R2=0.390). Conclusions: Elderly’s OHRQoL may be dependent on the economic performance of a country, and generally improves with increasing GDP-PPP. Countries with better economic performance tend to have a higher dental personnel-to-population ratio. More in-depth investigations are required to elucidate such relationships as per population characteristics, type of dental personnel, types of dental services available, public health expenditure and income disparity.