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Impact of Long Working Hours and Shift Work on Perceived Unmet Dental Need: A Panel Study.

ABSTRACT: This study investigates whether workers with long working hours as well as shift workers perceive higher unmet dental care needs, and whether there is a gender difference in the associations. We used the Korea Health Panel (2009, 2011-2014) involving 20,451 person-wave observations from 5567 individuals. Perceived unmet dental care needs was defined when the participants reported that they perceived a need for dental treatment or check-up but had failed to receive dental care services during the past year. Fixed effects logit models were applied to examine how changes in weekly working hours or shift work status were linked to changes in perceived unmet dental needs within each individual. Among participants, 15.9-24.7% reported perceived unmet dental needs and the most common reason was time scarcity. We found that long working hours (>52 h/week) was significantly associated with perceived unmet dental needs due to time scarcity in both men (OR = 1.42, 95% CI 1.13-1.78) and women (OR = 1.35, 95% CI 1.03-1.79) compared workers working 40-52 h per week. Shift work was also a significant risk factor, but only in women (OR = 1.57, 95% CI 1.06-2.32). These findings provide evidence for labor policies to reduce working hours in order to improve access to dental care services.

SUBMITTER: Lee HE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8001453 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Impact of Long Working Hours and Shift Work on Perceived Unmet Dental Need: A Panel Study.

Lee Hye-Eun HE Kim Nam-Hee NH Jang Tae-Won TW Kawachi Ichiro I

International journal of environmental research and public health 20210313 6

This study investigates whether workers with long working hours as well as shift workers perceive higher unmet dental care needs, and whether there is a gender difference in the associations. We used the Korea Health Panel (2009, 2011-2014) involving 20,451 person-wave observations from 5567 individuals. Perceived unmet dental care needs was defined when the participants reported that they perceived a need for dental treatment or check-up but had failed to receive dental care services during the ...[more]

PMID: 33805606

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Project description:BackgroundMany previous studies on the reasons behind unmet dental needs focus on economic issues. However, in this research, we aimed to investigate the relationship between long working hours and unmet dental needs while considering the influence of occupational factors in wage workers.MethodsThis study used data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2012-2018) and analyzed a sample of 12,104 wage workers. Unmet dental needs were defined as cases in which individuals did not receive dental care, despite their need for examination or treatment, within the last year. Long working hours were defined as exceeding 52 h per week, based on the standard working hours stipulated by the Labor Standards Act. A binomial model was applied to calculate the prevalence ratio through multivariate logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe prevalence of unmet dental needs was observed in 3,948 cases (32.5%), among which 1,478 attributed their presence to lack of time. The prevalence of unmet dental needs showed an inverse relationship with the education level and household income. The wage workers who worked long hours had the highest prevalence of unmet dental needs. Long working hours were found to be 1.18 times (95% CI 1.07-1.29) more likely to result in unmet dental care compared to working less than 40 h. The relationship between long working hours and unmet dental needs were statistically significant only in men (PR 1.24, 95% CI 1.07-1.43). However, the relationship between long working hours and unmet dental needs owing to time were in both men and women (men: PR 1.59, 95% CI 1.20-2.11, women: PR 1.90, 95% CI 1.48-2.43).ConclusionsThis study confirmed that long working hours and unmet dental needs are related when occupational factors are taken into consideration, despite the absence of oral health indicators. Using this study as a reference, further research is necessary to identify the underlying causes of unmet dental care and to improve access to dental services in the future.

Dataset Information

Impact of Long Working Hours and Shift Work on Perceived Unmet Dental Need: A Panel Study.

Publications

Impact of Long Working Hours and Shift Work on Perceived Unmet Dental Need: A Panel Study.

Similar Datasets

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