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Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
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Social Support and Functional Dentition Among English Older Adults
Fatimah Alobaidi1, Wael Sabbah1
1Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, 2nd Floor Dental Institute Extension, King's College London, Denmark Hill, London SE5 9RS, UK.
Dentistry Journal
|December 24, 2025
Summary
Positive social support is linked to better oral health in older English adults. Maintaining a higher number of natural teeth is associated with stronger social connections, independent of other factors.
Area of Science:
- Gerontology
- Public Health
- Oral Health Research
Background:
- Social support is crucial for overall well-being in older adults.
- Maintaining functional dentition is essential for quality of life and general health in aging populations.
- Understanding factors influencing oral health disparities in older adults is a public health priority.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between social support and functional dentition in older adults in England.
- To determine if positive and negative social support influence the prevalence of having 20 or more natural teeth.
- To explore these relationships while controlling for socioeconomic and behavioral factors.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional analysis of Wave 7 (2014/15) data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).
- Functional dentition defined as having ≥20 natural teeth.
- Poisson regression models used to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) for functional dentition, adjusting for covariates.
Main Results:
- A total of 6457 participants were analyzed.
- Higher positive social support scores were significantly associated with a higher prevalence of functional dentition (PR = 1.01 per point increase).
- Negative social support was not significantly associated with functional dentition after full adjustment.
Conclusions:
- Positive social support is independently associated with maintaining functional dentition in older English adults.
- Findings suggest community and healthcare interventions promoting social engagement may benefit oral health.
- Further research is needed to establish causality and explore life-course interactions.
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