How Are Oral Health and Mental Health Connected?
This peer-reviewed article in Preventing Chronic Disease, a journal sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examines the interrelationships between depression, oral health, and socioeconomic position based on results from a nationally representative survey of US adults.
The authors, from CareQuest Institute, the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine, and the University of Washington School of Dentistry, found that socioeconomic position — income, home ownership, employment, education, and dental insurance — is significantly associated with dental treatment seeking, toothbrushing and flossing, and mental health. These factors, in turn, are associated with self-rated oral health, including self-consciousness due to poor oral health.
The authors write:
This study provides further evidence that oral health is part of overall health, and that oral health and mental health are connected in multifaceted ways, underscoring the need to find integrated and person-centered ways to treat them.
The findings are based on CareQuest Institute’s annual State of Oral Health Equity in America survey, the largest nationally representative survey focused exclusively on adults’ knowledge, attitudes, experiences, and behaviors related to oral health.
Read the article in Preventing Chronic Disease (open access)
You may also be interested in:
- How Depression Is Linked to Oral Health, a visual report that summarizes the growing body of research about how our emotional state is connected to oral hygiene, dental disease, and dental visits.
- Dental Fear and Anxiety: Why It Exists and What Providers Can Do to Help, a self-paced course, eligible for 1 CE credit, that features dental and mental health experts explaining how dental anxiety can hinder patients from accessing care and techniques to help ease patients’ fear.
- State of Oral Health Equity in America 2024, an infographic that highlights initial key findings from the annual survey.