title: Dental utilization for Medicaid-enrolled children with cystic fibrosis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Despite a multitude of risk factors, children with cystic fibrosis (CF) have lower reported dental caries prevalence. A potential explanation is preventive dental care use, but no studies to date have examined dental use for children with CF.
  
  
  METHODS
  Iowa Medicaid data were analyzed for children age 3 to 17 years (N = 156,268). Poisson regression models were used to compare utilization rates for any dental care and also for specific categories of dental care, by CF status.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children with CF were significantly less likely to use any dental care than children without CF (incident rate ratio: 0.819, 95% CI: 0.80 to 0.84, p < .001). There were no significant differences in use across specific categories of dental care.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Medicaid-enrolled children with CF are less likely to use dental care than children without CF. These findings suggest that use of dental care use is an unlikely explanation for lower purported caries rates among children with CF.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Assistant Professor, Division of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Minnesota, Minnesota. elisesarvas@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Elise W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Sarvas
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Washington.
authors.forename: Colleen E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Huebner
authors.affiliation: Acting Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Washington, Washington.
authors.forename: JoAnna M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.affiliation: Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Oral Medicine, University of Washington, Washington.
authors.forename: Johan K M
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Aps
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Oral Health Sciences, University of Washington, Washington.
authors.forename: Donald L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Chi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000150:complications*; D019140:Dental Care for Children / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017742:Dental Care for Chronically Ill / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007484:Iowa; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States
keywords: Medicaid-enrolled children; cystic fibrosis; dental utilization