Study Finds Caregivers for Children Enrolled in Medicaid Report Multiple Barriers to Dental Care for Their Children

Parents and guardians who serve as caregivers for children enrolled in Medicaid say that discrimination and several barriers to access make it difficult to obtain dental care for their children, according to a new study published in the January 2002 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. In the study, researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill interviewed 77 caregivers from three geographic areas of North Carolina in 11 focus groups -- four African-American groups, three American-Indian groups, three Latino groups and one white group -- over a three-month period in 2000. Study participants met the following requirements: they served as "primary caregivers" for children enrolled in Medicaid at least one year prior the study; reported a time in the year prior to the study when they sought dental care for their children but "experienced difficulties obtaining it or could not get it at all"; and resided in geographic areas with "relatively large numbers of ethnically and racially diverse populations." The study found that the caregivers surveyed perceived three main barriers related to access: difficulty finding a provider, difficulty scheduling an appointment and "unreliable and inconvenient" transportation to dentist offices. In addition, the study found that caregivers also perceived barriers related to the "quality of the experience in the dental care setting," including "excessive" wait times, "demeaning and degrading" treatment from "front-office personnel," negative treatment from dentists and "discrimination" as a result of their children's enrollment in Medicaid. Participants in the Latino, African-American and Indian-American focus groups said that "they were treated differently" as a result of their ethnic backgrounds, and Latino participants also cited language problems as a "major obstacle" to obtaining dental care for their children. The study concluded, "Overall, what is disturbing about our findings is that despite realizing access, caregivers still had to navigate some formidable barriers in the dental setting" (Mofidi et al., American Journal of Public Health, January 2002). The study, titled "Problems with Access to Dental Care for Medicaid-Insured Children: What Caregivers Think," is available online.