Assessing unmet need for dental care from the perspective of adults with disabilities: A mixed methods approach

Adults with disabilities face multiple barriers in accessing health care and experience a variety of unmet needs, including dental care. However, few U.S. studies have assessed unmet need for dental care from the perspective of adults with disabilities.

We sought to assess unmet need for dental care services from the perspective of adults with disabilities using a mixed methods approach.

Using individual-level data from the 2022 National Survey on Health and Disability, we conducted a descriptive analysis of participant characteristics, unmet need for dental care, and reasons for unmet need. Using content analysis, we analyzed open-ended text responses from the survey.

While participants most commonly cited underinsurance as a barrier to services, they also highlighted lack of accommodation, dental anxiety, and difficulty securing appointments as issues resulting in unmet dental care needs.

This study illustrates not only the rate of unmet need for dental care for adults with disabilities, but also the reasons driving this phenomenon. Future research is needed to delve further into the reasons cited by participants, namely dental anxiety and the perception that dental providers are unwilling to serve disabled people, neither of which has been explored in-depth quantitatively or qualitatively.