CDA Essentials 2019 • Volume 6 • Issue 7

11 Issue 7 | 2019 | CDA at W ork After several years without comprehensive questions related to dentistry, Statistics Canada’s 2018 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) collected rich, meaningful, and high-quality data about the utilization of dental care. When this new data is compared to similar Canadian data from 2014, data about dental care use in other high- income countries, and data about use of other kinds of medical care, an exciting and dynamic picture of the successes of the Canadian dental care system emerges. The new data shows that as many—and even slightly more—people visited dental professionals (74.7%) than medical doctors (74%) in a one-year period. Though medical care has public funding and dental care has mixed public-private (largely private) funding, these statistics suggest that both systems are used by equal numbers of Canadians. These numbers may represent a natural peak—it is uncommon to find a population with higher rates of regular health care use. Before these new statistics were released, the expectation was that the use of dental care would have stayed the same in the past 4 years, because of tepid economic growth and cutbacks to employer-provided insurance, which we have heard about anecdotally. Instead, it has grown substantially. Among Canadians aged 12 and over, 66.5% consulted a dental professional in 2014 and 74.7% did so in 2018. 1 This shift represents more than 4 million people. Even with a growing number of dentists, an increase of this size in the number of people using dental care is significant. The demographic of people 65 and over has seen impressive increases in dental care use, from 54.8% to 67.5% in four years. Reasons for these increases are multi-faceted, but one can hypothesize that Baby Boomers have greater resources then previous generations of seniors and spend more on health care; people are having more elective dental treatments; and an increase in the number of dentists may create induced demand—economist-speak for when increasing the supply of a good or service makes people use more of it. From a health systems perspective, this data demonstrates that our oral health system provides high levels of dental care use for a large population base at a relatively low cost to government. As well, our system provides minimal wait times, a high quality of care and desirable outcome measures amongst the top in the world (as demonstrated by indicators in the oral health component reports of the 2007–09 Canadian Health Measures Survey). Costa Papadopoulos CHE, MHA Health Policy, Canadian Dental Association 0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 65 years and older 50-64 years 35-49 years 18-34 years 12-17 years Total (12 years and older) Percentage reporting a dental visit in the past year (by age group and sex, population aged 12 and older, Canada, 2018) Males Females Note: Respondents were asked to report the last time they visited a dental professional. A dental professional includes dentist, dental hygienist, denturologist, orthodontist, periodontist, dental surgeon or dental therapist. Source:CanadianCommunityHealthSurvey,2018. NEWDATA SHOW Canada Among Leaders in Dental Care Utilization Theviewsexpressedarethoseoftheauthorand donotnecessarilyreflecttheopinionsorofficial policiesoftheCanadianDentalAssociation. cpapadopoulos@ cda-adc.ca