Dentist Finder San Diego

Whether or not children receive regular dental care is strongly associated with their parents’ history of seeking dental care according to a report in the journal Pediatrics.

“When parents don’t see the dentist, their children are much less likely to see the dentist,” says Inyang Isong, MD, MPH, of the MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy, the study’s lead author. “We also found that the children of parents who have put off their own dental care for financial reasons are more likely to have their care deferred due to cost as well. It looks like strategies to promote oral health should focus on the whole family.”

Survey responses including data regarding dental visits for both a child and parent in the same household was available for more than 6,100 matched pairs. Overall, 77% of children and 64% of parents had a dental visit in the previous 12 months. Among parents who reported seeing a dentist during the preceding year, 86% of children had also seen a dentist; but only 64% of the children of parents with no recent dental visit had seen a dentist during the previous 12 months.

The survey results are not too surprising considering all kids need their parents to take them to the dentist. If parents don’t put much value on dental care, then they are much more likely to not take their kids. These patients fall into the category of “if it doesn’t hurt, then don’t worry about it,” which is unfortunately too common in dentistry.