The impact of disability acquisition on affordability of oral health care in Australian adults.

Authors

Gagandeep Kaur, Bismi Mohamed Ismail, Matthew Lim, Barbara Janssens, Yi Yang, Alex Blokland, Ankur Singh

Published in

Disability and health journal. Pages 102176. Oct 10, 2026. Epub Oct 10, 2026.

Abstract

It is unknown if people who acquire a disability avoid oral health care due to financial barriers to a greater extent than those without a disability.
To investigate the effect of disability acquisition on the affordability of oral health care among Australians.
Longitudinal data from waves 14 to 18 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia study was used. A quantitative data analysis was conducted using inverse probability weighting (IPW). Participants without disability in wave 15, who acquired a disability or an activity-limiting long-term health condition in subsequent waves, were considered exposed compared to those without disability across all waves. The outcome was affordability of oral health care (wave 18). Confounders were measured at wave 14.
A total of 9476 individuals were analysed. Disability acquisition was associated with a 3.7% absolute increase in the risk of unaffordability of oral health care (RD: 0.037; 95% CI: 0.023, 0.051) and a twofold higher relative risk (RR: 2.01; 95% CI: 1.63, 2.48) compared with no disability. The effect of acquired disability on unaffordability of oral health care was more pronounced in working-age adults than those over 55years.
Access to oral health care among adults who acquired a disability was impeded by affordability, particularly among working-age adults. This highlights the need for strengthened oral health care policies that ensure affordable and equitable access to reduce the unmet need among people with disability. This is especially important for working-age adults who face gaps in support and financial protection.

PMID:
42869721
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 14 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.