Objective: To determine the demographic, economic, geographic, and health infrastructure factors related to the percentage of students by school who comply with state-mandated dental screenings in Iowa.
Methods: An exploratory, cross-sectional study was conducted, utilizing secondary data sources from the Iowa Department of Public Health, the Iowa Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to examine factors related to dental screening compliance rates for public school kindergarteners in Iowa (AY year 2014-15). Both school-level and county-level factors were considered. A ninety percent student compliance rate was established as the criteria for a school to satisfy the threshold for being compliant with screening requirement. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationship of the independent variables on whether the schools satisfactorily met the criteria for compliance.
Results: Fifty-six percent of the 504 schools included in the study satisfactorily met the established criteria. Schools located in dental health professional shortage areas or in urban adjacent areas were more likely to have a greater percentage of kindergarten students exceed the 90% compliance threshold (p<0.05). Schools where a greater percentage of students were screened by a dentist or where larger populations of children were eligible for free or reduced price lunch (FRPL) (≥40%) were less likely to meet the compliance threshold.
Conclusions: Schools with more lower income students, those in metro areas, and those with a higher reliance on dentists performing the oral health screenings could benefit from targeted efforts to improve compliance with mandated dental screenings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uiowa.edu/oai:ir.uiowa.edu:etd-8439 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Creators | Drouillard, Peter Noel Vincent |
| Contributors | Damiano, Peter C. |
| Publisher | University of Iowa |
| Source Sets | University of Iowa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright © 2019 Peter Noel Vincent Drouillard |
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