The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research has awarded Brandy Lipton, PhD, associate professor of health, society, and behavior from the UC Irvine Program in Public Health, a 4-year grant to evaluate and examine the oral health benefits stemming from Medicaid’s dental coverage for pregnant women.
For pregnant women, oral health becomes less of a priority in their overall prenatal care regimen. And the consequences of poor oral health can adversely affect the health of both the mother and their young child up to middle childhood. During pregnancy, women are more prone to gum disease and cavities because of changing hormones and eating habits. The negative health consequences don’t stop there. Evidence has shown that children of mothers who have high levels of untreated cavities or tooth loss are more than three times more likely to have cavities as a child.
Oral health should be considered an integral part of prenatal care, but for communities of color this is a challenge. Often, communities of color may not have access to quality dental care due to lack of dental insurance, low dentist-population ratio, and lack of diversity in the dental profession.
Our findings have the potential to provide critical new evidence on whether dental benefits for women during pregnancy can have long-lasting impacts on their children.”
– Brandy Lipton, PhD
Lipton’s goal with this study is to show that there is a two-fold benefit to providing dental benefits to pregnant women. First, dental benefits will increase the use of all service types, such as preventative care. Second, it will reduce or delay the need for restorative treatment brought on by cavities and tooth decay among young children.
To prove their theory, the team will look at how Medicaid dental benefits are being utilized (preventive, restorative, etc.) among pregnant women. Next, they will examine the impact that Medicaid dental benefits have, while in utero, on the later oral health status of children ages 2-11. Finally, the team will evaluate the effects of Medicaid dental benefits for pregnant women, not only by race and ethnicity, but also access barriers and facilitators like income, education, housing, immigration enforcement, dentist supply, and more.
“Our findings have the potential to provide critical new evidence on whether dental benefits for women during pregnancy can have long-lasting impacts on their children,” says Lipton. “If our theories are correct, our data can assist policymakers in not only continuing to support the program but also improving policy to reduce the barriers that communities of color and families with low incomes face in accessing dental care.”
Collaborators on the project include Dr. Tim Allen Bruckner, Professor of health, society, and behavior at UCI, Dr. Richard Manski, Professor and Chair of Dental Public Health at University of Maryland Baltimore, Dr. Maria Steenland, Assistant Professor of Population Studies at Brown University, and researchers Dr. Eric Tranby and Mr. John O’Malley at the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health.
