@article {Emanuel:2018:1087-3244:59,
title = "Dental Visits Mediate the Impact of Smoking on Oral Health",
journal = "American Journal of Health Behavior",
parent_itemid = "infobike://png/ajhb",
publishercode ="png",
year = "2018",
volume = "42",
number = "1",
publication date ="2018-01-01T00:00:00",
pages = "59-68",
itemtype = "ARTICLE",
issn = "1087-3244",
eissn = "1945-7359",
url = "https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/png/ajhb/2018/00000042/00000001/art00006",
doi = "doi:10.5993/AJHB.42.1.6",
keyword = "LONGITUDINAL DESIGN, ORAL HEALTH, SMOKING, MEDIATION ANALYSIS, DENTAL VISITS",
author = "Emanuel, Amber S. and Parish, Alice and Logan, Henrietta L. and Dodd, Virginia J. and Zheng, Dong and Guo, Yi",
abstract = "Objectives: We explored the mediational relationships among smoking, dental visits, and oral health in a longitudinal study. Methods: We selected a sample of adult residents of rural communities of North Central Florida and followed them for 3 years (final N = 1170). We examined the
impact of smoking on oral health across time and conducted mediation analysis to quantify the effect of dental visits on the relationship between smoking and poor oral health. Results: Our results showed that oral health declined across time for smokers but not for nonsmokers. The mediation
analysis found that 18.3% of the difference in followup oral health between smokers and non-smokers was explained by smokers not having any dental visits in the last year. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that, given the low success rate of quitting smoking, promoting dental visits can help
limit the negative effects of smoking on oral health. Future community prevention studies could encourage dental visits among smokers and provide educational materials that aim to increase knowledge of oral self-care.",
}