标题：Identifying Unaddressed Systemic Health Conditions at Dental Visits: Patients Who Visited Dental Practices but Not General Health Care Providers in 2008
摘要：We assessed the proportion and characteristics of patients who do not regularly visit general health care providers but do visit dentists and whose unaddressed systemic health conditions could therefore be identified by their dentist. Of the 26.0% of children and 24.1% of adults that did not access general outpatient health care in 2008, 34.7% and 23.1%, respectively, visited a dentist. They varied by census region, family income, and sociodemographics. Dental practices can serve as alternate sites of opportunity to identify health concerns among diverse groups of US patients. Many systemic diseases manifest in the oral cavity. 1,2 Therefore, dental providers can often use direct clinical observations and radiographic findings to detect patients’ systemic health disorders. 3 Through systematic assessment and referral, dentists and dental hygienists can alert these patients about the need for follow-up with primary care providers, when warranted. This is especially important for those dental patients who do not regularly access general health care. To better inform the extent to which a dental practice can serve as a site of opportunity for assessment and identification of systemic health disorders for such patients, we analyzed data collected in 2008 as part of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). We determined the proportion and characteristics of children and adults who were seen by a dentist in 2008 but not by a general health care provider in an outpatient setting during that year.
