Title

Oral health disparities in the elderly: A study on access to dental care and its implications

Authors

Saurabh Sinha^{*, 1}, Charu Chitra Govindan², Anjali Sharma³, Pramod Kumar Yadav⁴, E. Amuthavalli⁵ & Anubhuti Jain⁶

Affiliation

¹Department of Dentistry, K M C Medical College, Maharajganj Uttar Pradesh, India; ²Department of Public Health Dentistry, Rama Dental College, Hospital and Research Centre, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India; ³Department of Dental Surgery, VMMC and Safdarjung hospital, New Delhi, India; ⁴Departmentof Periodontia & Community Dentistry, Dr Z.A Dental College, AMU, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India; ⁵Department of Dental Surgery, K.A.P. Visawanatham Government Medical College, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India; ⁶Department of Public Health Dentistry, Chhattisgarh Dental College and Research Institute, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Saurabh Sinha - E - mail: dr.saurabhsinha@gmail.com
Charu Chitra Govindan - E - mail: drcharuchitra@gmail.com
Anjali Sharma - E - mail: angel21aloft@gmail.com
Pramod Kumar Yadav - E - mail: Pramod468@gmail.com
E. Amuthavalli - E - mail: dramuthavallimds@gmail.com
Anubhuti Jain - E - mail: eicijss@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received April 1, 2025; Revised April 30, 2025; Accepted April 30, 2025, Published April 30, 2025

Abstract

Elderly people encounter important dental health effects on their general well-being even though their access to dental services remains unequal. Seniors living in rural areas showed more tooth decay on dental examination with DMFT scores at 14.2 for of 300 seniors while urban seniors had scores at 9.5. Regular check-ups were accessed by 57% of urban senior citizens whereas only 28% of rural elderly received such visits. The cost of transportation and insufficient funds stood as main obstacles that prevented seniors from attending dental appointments. Enhanced accessibility combined with increased awareness constitutes the base for decreasing healthcare inequalities affecting aging adults' oral health.

Keywords

Oral health, elderly, dental care access, disparities, DMFT index, rural-urban comparison

Citation

Sinha et al. Bioinformation 21(4): 832-835 (2025)

Edited by

Hiroj Bagde MDS, (PhD), PGDCR, PGDHHM, PGDL, PGDM

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.