Impacting Factors on Oral Health Status of the Community among the Elderly the 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination

Background/Objectives: Few researchers have reported the influence level of impacting factors about oral health of the community among the older people. We examined impacting factors on oral health status. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Using available data through a cross-sectional survey, we assessed impacting factors of oral health status with the individual and the living area and economic activity as the community factors in a sample of 1106 adults of 65 or older. We used individual-level oral health examination, predisposing factors (age, gender, education, marital status), enabling factors (insurance, income), and needs factors (mental, physical problems) with community-level data (living area, economic activity). Findings: We analyzed the impacting factors on oral health status of the community after adjustment for confounding factors by using multi-level logistic regression models. Our results showed that individual- level factors like being younger, male, non-married, non-poor, higher educational level, public and private insurances were impacting factors being related with higher odds of taking oral health examination. In conclusion, the elderly being younger, male as individual-level factors were more likely to have oral health care services even after adjusting the community-level factors (odds ratio = 2.13(1.03-4.40); p=.04; odds ratio = 1.72(1.11-2.65); p=.01). Improvements: Therefore, personalized and tailored policy plans are needed to intervene in the individual level with community levels to keep and improve oral health status in the Korean elderly.