Top Stories - Posted by Beth Dunham-USC on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 10:35 - 2 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Grades suffer when kids have achy teeth
Poor oral health doesn't just appear to be connected to lower grades, study author Roseann Mulligan says, adding that dental problems also seem to cause more absences from school for children and more missed work for parents. (Credit: "Child brushes teeth" via Shutterstock)
USC (US) — Children with tooth pain were four times more likely to have a low grade-point average compared to kids with healthy teeth, a new study shows.
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The findings reported in the American Journal of Public Health indicate that poor oral health, dental disease, and tooth pain can put children at a serious disadvantage in school.
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) examined nearly 1,500 socioeconomically disadvantaged elementary and high school children in the Los Angeles Unified School District, matching oral health status to their academic achievement and attendance records.
The researchers had previously documented that 73 percent of disadvantaged youngsters in Los Angeles have dental caries, the disease responsible for cavities in teeth. The new study shines light on the specific connection between oral health and performance in school for this population, says Roseann Mulligan, chair of the Division of Dental Public Health and Pediatric Dentistry and corresponding author of the study.
Poor oral health doesn’t just appear to be connected to lower grades, Mulligan says, adding that dental problems also seem to cause more absences from school for children and more missed work for parents.
“On average, elementary children missed a total of six days per year, and high school children missed 2.6 days. For elementary students, 2.1 days of missed school were due to dental problems, and high school students missed 2.3 days due to dental issues,” she says.
“That shows oral health problems are a very significant factor in school absences. Also, parents missed an average of 2.5 days of work per year to care for children with dental problems.”
A factor in whether children miss school due to dental health issues was the accessibility of dental care. Eleven percent of children who had limited access to dental care—whether due to lack of insurance, lack of transportation, or other barriers—missed school due to their poor oral health, as opposed to only 4 percent of children who had easier access to dental care.
“Our data indicates that for disadvantaged children, there is an impact on students’ academic performance due to dental problems. We recommend that oral health programs must be more integrated into other health, educational, and social programs, especially those that are school-based,” Mulligan says. “Furthermore, widespread population studies are needed to demonstrate the enormous personal, societal, and financial burdens that this epidemic of oral disease is causing on a national level.”
Source: USC
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2 Comments
Andar
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I wouldn’t doubt that the correlation goes deeper. The article alludes to the fact that these children are from disadvantaged families, but I don’t see whether they accounted for similarly disadvantaged students with and without cavities. It’s been generally recognized that children in primarily low-income districts receive a lower quality of education and materials than more affluent regions.
It seems that such children would be more likely to suffer from dental problems due to lack of care, rather than poor dental care being the cause of their suffering grades.