Educational Attainment and Self-Rated Oral Health among American Older Adults: Hispanics’ Diminished Returns
by
Shervin Assari 1,*
and 
Mohsen Bazargan 1,2
Shervin Assari 1,* and Mohsen Bazargan 1,2
1
Department of Family Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA
2
Department of Family Medicine, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Dent. J. 2019, 7(4), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/dj7040097
Received: 21 June 2019 / Revised: 8 August 2019 / Accepted: 12 September 2019 / Published: 1 October 2019
Background: Minorities’ diminished returns (MDRs) refer to systemically weaker effects of socioeconomic status (SES), particularly educational attainment, on the health of non-Whites compared to Whites. Aim: Using a nationally representative sample, we aimed to investigate ethnic differences in the effect of SES (educational attainment) on the self-rated oral health of Hispanic older adults in the US. Methods: This study analyzed the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging (UM-NPHA) 2017 data, which included 2131 older adults who were 50 to 80 years old (202 Hispanics and 1929 non-Hispanics). Ethnicity, race, educational attainment (SES), age, gender, employment, retirement, and self-rated oral health (single item) were measured. Logistic regressions were applied for data analysis. Results: High educational attainment was associated with lower odds of poor oral health in the pooled sample, net of all covariates. The effect of educational attainment on poor self-rated oral health was found to be weaker for Hispanics than for non-Hispanics. Conclusion: We observed MDRs of educational attainment (SES) on oral health for Hispanic older adults. In other words, compared to non-Hispanics, Hispanics gain less oral health from their educational attainment (SES).
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Keywords:
Hispanics; oral health; educational attainment; socioeconomic status; socioeconomic position
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Assari, S.; Bazargan, M. Educational Attainment and Self-Rated Oral Health among American Older Adults: Hispanics’ Diminished Returns. Dent. J. 2019, 7, 97.
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