American Journal of Public Health, Vol 90, Issue 7 1059-1063, Copyright © 2000 by American Public Health Association

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Perceived unmet need for oral treatment among a national population of HIV-positive medical patients: social and clinical correlates

M Marcus, JR Freed, ID Coulter, C Der-Martirosian, W Cunningham, R Andersen, I Garcia, DA Schneider, WR Maas, SA Bozzette and MF Shapiro
School of Dentistry, University of California at Los Angeles, USA. mamarcus@ucla.edu

OBJECTIVES: This study examines social, behavioral, and clinical correlates of perceived unmet need for oral health care for people with HIV infection. METHODS: Baseline in-person interviews with 2864 individuals were conducted with the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study cohort, a nationally representative probability sample of HIV-infected persons in medical care. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses were conducted, with unmet need in the last 6 months as the dependent variable and demographic, social, behavioral, and disease characteristics as independent variables. RESULTS: We estimate that 19.3% of HIV-infected medical patients (n = 44,550) had a perceived unmet need for dental care in the last 6 months. The odds of having unmet dental needs were highest for those on Medicaid in states without dental benefits (odds ratio [OR] = 2.21), for others with no dental insurance (OR = 2.26), for those with incomes under $5000 (OR = 2.20), and for those with less than a high school education (OR = 1.83). Low CD4 count was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived unmet need was related more to social and economic factors than to stage of infection. An expansion of dental benefits for those on Medicaid might reduce unmet need for dental care.

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