Factors associated with the use of oral health services in Peruvian children under the age of 12 years

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and factors associated with the use of oral health services in Peruvian children under 12 years of age.Material and Methods: A secondary analysis of 2019 Demographic and Family Health Survey was conducted. The sample consisted of 40,751 children. The main variable was the use of dental services (attended/not attended) in the last 6 months, and the independent variables were gender, age, area of residence, wealth quintile, health insurance coverage, information received on oral health care, age, and educational level of the caregivers. Analyses of absolute and relative frequencies, differences in proportions, and multivariate analysis using generalized linear models were performed.Results: The dental service utilization prevalence during the last 6 months was 31%.

Towards the integration of prevention and control of oral diseases within child primary healthcare: The case of Peru

“…22 This reflects the reported impact of COVID-19 on dental attendance rates among children. 23 Moreover, the social and educational gradient found in OHSU during childhood has also been reported in other studies from Peru, 18,24,25 India, 26 Brazil, 27 China 28 and Belgium. 29 Better socio-economic conditions provide parents or caregivers with greater access, facilities and resources that allow them to assume the importance of primary dentition and perceive dental care as a preventive rather than therapeutic service, so as not to delay seeking care until dental problems arise and accumulate.…”

“…Another issue of concern is the induction of further health inequities. In Peru, children's OHSU correlates with their caregivers having received recent oral health information, being the most significant impact on the highest wealth and educational levels 25 . Some public health interventions are more likely to generate and amplify inequities, since they are more beneficial for the most favoured, least vulnerable population groups 31 .…”

“…29 Better socio-economic conditions provide parents or caregivers with greater access, facilities and resources that allow them to assume the importance of primary dentition and perceive dental care as a preventive rather than therapeutic service, so as not to delay seeking care until dental problems arise and accumulate. [24][25][26][27][28][29] Integrating oral health promotion and prevention into child PHC, as CRED norm, 15 seems to be a promising public health intervention that could improve children's oral health and OHSU. 17,30 Early childhood is a critical period to establish healthy behaviours, given the greater willingness of mothers and families to receive advice and considerable regular contact with health services to reinforce messages.…”

“…with their caregivers having received recent oral health information, being the most significant impact on the highest wealth and educational levels. 25 Some public health interventions are more likely to generate and amplify inequities, since they are more beneficial for the most favoured, least vulnerable population groups. 31 This is the case of downstream/proximal interventions, such as traditional health advice or through mass media campaigns, which only reach a portion of the population, those with greater access to information and socio-economic status and who can effectively understand the real benefits of pro-health behaviours.…”

Frequency, inequalities and spatial distribution of oral health services utilization in Peruvian children under twelve years of age: a population-based comparative analysis of the years 2017 and 2021

“…However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decrease was reported in this percentage (2020: 19.6%) [ 10 , 11 ]. Likewise, it has previously been reported that Peruvian children under 12 years of age belonging to the wealthiest quintiles, had a higher probability of using oral health services in 2019, a scenario that may have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing inequalities in oral health [ 12 ]. Finally, the pandemic has hit Peru particularly hard as it is a developing country with a limited capacity to respond to this type of event, insufficient access to basic services, high rates of poverty and unemployment [ 13 ], and spending on health that represented only 5.22% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2019, being below other countries in the Latin American and the Caribbean region and the regional average (7.88%) [ 14 ].…”