63rd ORCA Congress: Session 2 Epidemiology: Dental Service Utilisation and Social Deprivation in Older Adults in the UK

Oral health in older adults is in the midst of an epidemiological transition. Access to care for the elderly becomes increasingly problematic with increasing age, and unlike previous generations, 94% have their own teeth. This presents a potential burden to services. Predicting the future for oral health in the ageing population has been well described, but in order to plan dental services within the publically funded health services it is helpful to consider the needs of the different age groups within the population. Our hypothesis is that caries is an issue in the ageing population and there is disparity between the treatments carried out across the socioeconomic levels (IMD). To develop an understanding of service utilisation (demand and need), data extracted from NHS dental practices in North West of England have been analysed using descriptive statistics. The dataset provides the number of treatment claim forms (FP17s) submitted in a 15-month period for 794,502 adults aged <65, 65–74, 75–84 and ≥85 years, with additional detail regarding their IMD. We termed ‘older adults’ as those over 65 years old. Reporting on private dental treatment were not covered in the dataset. For older adults in the lowest quintile for deprivation, extractions appeared on 10.2 out of 100 FP17s submitted, 1.4 times more than those in the upper quintile. The highest number of upper acrylic dentures were given to adults aged 85 and over, at a rate of 11.9 per 100 FP17s for the most deprived compared to 3.8 for the least deprived, a 3-fold difference. Data regarding preventative treatment also may be indicative of caries experience. In older deprived adults best practice prevention was carried out 41.1 per 100 FP17s contrasting to only 31.9 per 100 FP17s for younger deprived adults. It was evident that more treatment claim forms were submitted for the most deprived patients across all age stratifications and the type of treatment provided is consistent with the patient’s IMD level. This research is part of PhD project to develop caries risk assessments in older adults. However, the application of this cross-sectional data is limited since reasons for treatment cannot be assumed, but it provides a good foundation for hypothesis generation