Explaining Dental Utilization Behavior

This report examines the factors other than dental health insurance that explain people's use of dental health services. In particular, it addresses three questions: (1) What explains the substantial percentage of people with dental health insurance who do not use any dental care during a year? (2) What underlying — and often unmeasured — differences in need, attitudes, or continuity manifest themselves as observed sociodemographic group variations in use of dental care? (3) Do the same or different factors account for care-seeking and for amount of care once an individual enters the system? The authors found that those in poorer health were less likely to use dental services, as were the less satisfied and those less likely to have seen the same dentist previously.