Relationship Between Low Education and Poor Periodontal Status among Mexican Adults Aged ≥50 Years.

Purpose: To examine the association between educational level and the presence of periodontal disease in adults ages ≥ 50 years in Mexico.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 2098 Mexican adults, using data from the annual reports of the Epidemiological Monitoring System for Oral Pathologies from 2019-2022. Data were collected on sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, age, educational level, oral hygiene, and diabetes. Periodontal status was evaluated using the Community Periodontal Index (CPI) and was classified into: CPI = 0 (healthy); CPI = 1 (bleeding on probing); CPI = 2 (calculus); and CPI = 3 or 4 (pocket depth ≥ 4 mm). A multinomial regression model was used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and the 95% confidence intervals (CI), using periodontal status as the result.

Results: 39.9% of subjects presented periodontal pockets of ≥ 4 mm, 20.8% presented calculus, and 12.8% presented bleeding, while only 26.4% were classified as healthy. A low level of education (≤ 9 years) (OR = 4.84; p 0.001), age ≥ 65 years (OR = 1.33; p = 0.025), poor oral hygiene (OR = 6.86; p 0.001), smoking (OR = 1.51; p = 0.025), and diabetes (OR = 1.73; p 0.001) were statistically significantly associated with the presence of periodontal pockets ≥ 4 mm.

Conclusions: A low level of education is associated with worse periodontal status in adults aged 50 years or more. These findings reiterate the importance of implementing effective strategies and the incorporation of interventions for improving the access to and quality of services targeted at aging communities.