EC Dental Science

Background: Many public dental schools have a mission to serve the local community with a particular emphasis on patients who face multiple barriers to access and dental care. Access to dental care and utilization of pediatric dental services for minority and underserved populations has been the subject of many recent studies. The goal of this project was to evaluate the demographic characteristics of a public dental school (UNLV-SDM) patient population to determine the utilization of dental services.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of pediatric patient demographics was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Demographic patient data collected between 2010 and 2020 were analyzed for longitudinal comparisons with Nevada population data for the same period from the United States (US) Census.

Results: Longitudinal analysis revealed that the percentage of non-minority (White) pediatric residents in Nevada declined by 12.9% (from 54.2% in 2010 to 47.2% in 2020), while the percentage of minority (non-White) pediatric residents in Nevada increased by 15.3% (from 45.8% in 2010 to 52.8% in 2020). In contrast, the UNLV-SDM pediatric patient clinic population exhibited an overall increase of 34.1% in non-minority patients from 17.6% to 23.6% and an overall decrease in minority patients of 7.3% from 82.4% to 76.4% over the same time period. More detailed analysis revealed increases in UNLV-SDM number of Black pediatric patients by 151.6% (2010, 9.3% to 2020, 23.4%; R² = 0.847) and Asian patients by 169.2% (2010, 2.6% to 2020, 7.0%; R² = 0.891), while there were decreases in the number of Hispanic patients by 34.8% (2010, 70.4% to 2020, 45.9%; R² = 0.883) and Native American patients by 53.5% (2010, 0.16% to 2020, 0.08%; R² = 0.141).

Discussion: This study demonstrated that although the percentage of racial and ethnic minorities in Nevada increased moderately over the past decade, the UNLV-SDM pediatric clinic population demonstrated a significantly lower increase over the same time period. Moreover, this disparity was specifically related to decreases in Hispanic and Native American population subgroups, which are among the groups most likely to exhibit disparities in utilization of services and preventive dental care. More research will be needed to determine the factors that contribute to these disparities in utilization among specific minority subgroups in order to determine the appropriate measures that may be needed to address these disparities.

 Keywords: Pediatric; Dental; Minority; Underserved; Access to Care

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