IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v71y2010i11p2028-2037.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

False hope: Effects of social class and health policy on oral health inequalities for migrant farmworker families

Author

Listed:
  • Castañeda, Heide
  • Carrion, Iraida V.
  • Kline, Nolan
  • Tyson, Dinorah Martinez

Abstract

Few studies have engaged issues of social class and access related to dental health care policy from an ethnographic perspective. The state of Florida in the US has one of the poorest records in the nation for providing dental care for low-income children, falling especially short for Medicaid-enrolled children. In this paper, we discuss unmet dental health needs of children in migrant farmworker families. Although one of the most marginalized populations, most are eligible for Medicaid and are thus covered for dental services. However, serious disparities have been linked to the lack of access through the public insurance system. This study was informed by participant observation at dental clinics and a Migrant Head Start Center and interviews with dental health providers (n = 19) and migrant farmworker parents (n = 48) during 2009. Our results indicate that some typical factors associated with poor oral health outcomes, such as low dental health literacy, may not apply disproportionately to this population. Instead, we argue that structural features and ineffective policies contribute to oral health care disparities. Dental Medicaid programs are chronically underfunded, resulting in low reimbursement rates, low provider participation, and a severe distribution shortage of dentists within poor communities. We characterize the situation for families in Florida as one of "false hope" because of the promise of services with neither adequate resources nor the urgency to provide them. The resulting system of charity care, which leads dentists to provide pro bono care instead of accepting Medicaid, serves to only further persistent inequalities. We provide several recommendations, including migrant-specific efforts such as programs for sealants and new mothers; improvements to the current system by removing obstacles for dentists to treat low-income children; and innovative models to provide comprehensive care and increase the number of providers.

Suggested Citation

  • Castañeda, Heide & Carrion, Iraida V. & Kline, Nolan & Tyson, Dinorah Martinez, 2010. "False hope: Effects of social class and health policy on oral health inequalities for migrant farmworker families," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(11), pages 2028-2037, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:11:p:2028-2037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(10)00673-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sekiguchi, E. & Guay, A.H. & Brown, L.J. & Spangler Jr., T.J., 2005. "Improving the oral health of Alaska Natives," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(5), pages 769-773.
    2. Call, R.L. & Entwistle, B. & Swanson, T., 1987. "Dental caries in permanent teeth in children of migrant farm workers," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 77(8), pages 1002-1003.
    3. Mofidi, M. & Rozier, R.G. & King, R.S., 2002. "Problems with access to dental care for medicaid-insured children: What caregivers think," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(1), pages 53-58.
    4. Kelly, S.E. & Binkley, C.J. & Neace, W.P. & Gale, B.S., 2005. "Barriers to care-seeking for children's oral health among low-income caregivers," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(8), pages 1345-1351.
    5. Formicola, A.J. & Ro, M. & Marshall, S. & Derksen, D. & Powell, W. & Hartsock, L. & Treadwell, H.M., 2004. "Strengthening the Oral Health Safety Net: Delivery Models That Improve Access to Oral Health Care for Uninsured and Underserved Populations," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(5), pages 702-704.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Amanda A. & James, Aimee S. & Hunleth, Jean M., 2020. "Waiting for care: Chronic illness and health system uncertainties in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    2. Schrank, Beate & Bird, Victoria & Rudnick, Abraham & Slade, Mike, 2012. "Determinants, self-management strategies and interventions for hope in people with mental disorders: Systematic search and narrative review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(4), pages 554-564.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wael Sabbah & Aswathikutty Gireesh & Malini Chari & Elsa K. Delgado-Angulo & Eduardo Bernabé, 2019. "Racial Discrimination and Uptake of Dental Services among American Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-8, May.
    2. Levin, Kate A. & Davies, Carolyn A. & Douglas, Gail V.A. & Pitts, Nigel B., 2010. "Urban-rural differences in dental caries of 5-year old children in Scotland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(11), pages 2020-2027, December.
    3. Arnaldo Perez & Maryam Amin, 2014. "Dimensional Analysis of Psychosocial Barriers to Prevention of Early Childhood Caries Among Recent Immigrants," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(2), pages 21582440145, June.
    4. Ruxandra Sava-Rosianu & Guglielmo Campus & Anamaria Matichescu & Octavia Balean & Mihaela Adina Dumitrache & Patricia Ondine Lucaciu & Luminita Daguci & Magda Calina Barlean & Laurentiu Maricutoiu & M, 2021. "Caries Prevalence Associated with Oral Health-Related Behaviors among Romanian Schoolchildren," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-12, June.
    5. Destiny Kelley & Shipeng Sun, 2021. "How Phantom Networks, Provider Qualities, and Poverty Sway Medicaid Dental Care Access: A Geospatial Analysis of Manhattan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-20, November.
    6. Sojung Lim, 2019. "Mothers’ Nonstandard Employment, Family Structure, and Children’s Health Insurance Coverage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 148-164, June.
    7. Brumbaugh, Anne M. & Rosa, José Antonio, 2009. "Perceived Discrimination, Cashier Metaperceptions, Embarrassment, and Confidence as Influencers of Coupon Use: An Ethnoracial–Socioeconomic Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 347-362.
    8. repec:mpr:mprres:4732 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Passent Ellakany & Marwa Madi & Shaimaa M. Fouda & Maria Ibrahim & Jehan AlHumaid, 2021. "The Effect of Parental Education and Socioeconomic Status on Dental Caries among Saudi Children," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-10, November.
    10. Antonio D. Ligsay & Maurice Lee B. Santos & Epifania S. Simbul & Kristan Jela M. Tambio & Michelle Joyce M. Aytona & Grecebio Jonathan D. Alejandro & Richard Edward L. Paul & Zypher Jude G. Regencia &, 2021. "“We Tried to Borrow Money, but No One Helped.” Assessing the Three-Delay Model Factors Affecting the Healthcare Service Delivery among Dengue Patients during COVID-19 Surge in a Public Tertiary Hospit," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-15, November.
    11. Christopher Trenholm & Embry M. Howell & Dana Hughes & Sean Orzol, "undated". "The Santa Clara County Healthy Kids Program: Impacts on Children's Medical, Dental, and Vision Care," Mathematica Policy Research Reports a5c7ef47c4844db694c8bc8e3, Mathematica Policy Research.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:11:p:2028-2037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.