Social Support and Functional Dentition Among English Older Adults

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the association between social support and functional dentition among older adults in England. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was conducted using data from Wave 7 (2014/15) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Functional dentition, defined as having 20 or more natural teeth was the outcome. Positive and negative social support scores were included as exposures. Smoking and socioeconomic factors were included as covariates. Poisson regression models with robust variance estimators were used to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) for functional dentition, adjusting sequentially for demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioural factors. Results: A total of 6457 participants were included. Most participants in the sample were female, white, had less than O-Level education, were in higher wealth groups, had never smoked, and reported having functional dentition. The majority reported higher levels of positive social support and lower levels of negative social support. In the fully adjusted Poisson model, each one-point increase in positive social support score was associated with a 1% higher prevalence of functional dentition (PR = 1.01, 95% CI: 1.01-1.01), while negative social support was not significantly associated with functional dentition after adjustment. Conclusions: Positive social support was significantly associated with maintaining functional dentition among older English adults, independent of socioeconomic and behavioural factors. However, as this study was cross-sectional and based on self-reported data, causal relationships cannot be inferred. Interventions in community and healthcare settings that encourage social engagement, reduce isolation, and integrate oral health promotion within wider social care strategies may contribute to preserving functional dentition and reducing oral health inequalities. Future research should explore how these relationships evolve across the life course and interact with behavioural and socioeconomic determinants of health.