Socioeconomic inequalities in dental behaviors among Korean adults

Background. Few studies have tried to investigate the influence of socioeconomic inequalities on dental behaviors by considering the income and education levels as different dimensions of the independent variables in the adult Korean population. Objectives. This study aimed to evaluate the association between income level and education level in relation to dental behaviors, such as self-cares and dental visits in the adult Korean population. Material and methods. Six levels of socioeconomic status were classified according to a combination of monthly household income and educational achievement levels. The regression models were built to assess the association between different levels of socioeconomic status and the frequency of tooth brushing and the most recent dental visits. Results. This study confirmed that high levels of monthly household income and educational achievement were independently related to frequent tooth brushing and frequent dental visits. Low levels of socioeconomic status were inversely related to the frequency of tooth brushing and socioeconomic status groups except for the lowest one were also adversely related to frequent dental visits after adjusting for confounders. Conclusions. Korean adults with lower incomes but with higher education showed better dental behavior, including tooth brushing and dental visits than those with higher incomes but with lower education. The findings of this study could help in acknowledging the different characteristics of income and education as contributing factors leading to oral health behaviors in the adult Korean population.