Gisselle Carbajal Rodriguez, DMD, and co-authors have had their paper “Poverty Dynamics and Caries Status in Young Adolescents” published in the well established journal Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology (Impact factor: 3.383 (2020)).
Their findings reveal that both poverty at birth and intermittent poverty throughout childhood and adolescence are associated with higher odds of dental caries and a higher number of decayed teeth at age 13. Furthermore, downward socioeconomic mobility was linked to worse dental health, while the benefits of upward mobility were not fully protective—adolescents who experienced socioeconomic improvement still faced higher risk of caries compared to those who never experienced poverty.