By Mary Otto
Health officials say that thanks to factors including the disease-fighting power of optimally fluoridated water and toothpaste, complete tooth loss, called edentulism, is growing rarer among Americans.
“The baby boomer generation is the first where the majority of people will keep their natural teeth over their entire lifetime,” notes the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a useful online resource guide to adult oral health.
Still, edentulism persists. It has been called the “final marker” of oral disease burden. And common oral health problems continue to place millions of Americans at risk.
“The major risks for tooth loss are tooth decay and gum disease that may increase with age because of problems with saliva production; receding gums that expose “softer” root surfaces to decay-causing bacteria; or difficulties flossing and brushing because of poor vision, cognitive problems, chronic disease, and physical limitations,” the CDC notes.
The burdens of edentulism are not distributed evenly across all communities. The CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Prevalence and Trends tool offers state and metropolitan area-specific data on edentulism.
Edentulism rates also vary across races, federal research reveals.
“Although tooth decay and complete tooth loss have been declining in the United States since the 1960s, disparities have remained between some groups,” observed the authors of findings from the 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, really an ongoing series of surveys, which serves as a major tool for assessing the status of the nation’s oral health.
Among American adults aged 65 and over, edentulism rates were lower for older Hispanic (15%) and non-Hispanic white (17%) adults than for older non-Hispanic black adults (29%), NHANES found.
The prevalence of complete tooth loss was similar between older men (18%) and women (19%.)
Edentulism was twice as prevalent among adults aged 75 and over (26%) compared with adults aged 65–74 (13%) according to NHANES.
Edentulism and other oral problems contribute to social isolation, declining quality of life and poor nutrition.
And ongoing research is revealing more about the links between oral and systemic health and disease.
Yet for many Americans, particularly those living on low or fixed incomes, dental care remains more difficult to find than other kinds of health care.
While Medicaid covers roughly 38 million low-income adults, dental benefits are treated as an optional part of the program and not every state offers them.
And though Medicare provides a wide range of health care benefits to approximately 60 million elderly and disabled Americans, it has never included routine dental benefits.
A survey by the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute found that nearly half of seniors named cost as the top reason they had not visited a dentist in one recent year.
Advocates across a number of health care and senior advocacy groups have been working to raise the issue of adding dental benefits to Medicare.
Meanwhile, other organizations are tackling the oral health needs of seniors on a local level. For more than two years now the Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center, has been including dental care among the wellness services it provides to low income seniors in San Diego.
Is there a story about edentulism, or efforts to address it in your community?
