480 - Longitudinal Assessment of Dental Utilization in Pediatric Refugees Resettled in Washington State

Longitudinal Assessment of Dental Utilization in Pediatric Refugees Resettled in Washington State, Nguyen T, Seminario AL, Roberts F, (University of Washington, Seattle, WA), Wang Y (University of California, Los Angeles, CA)

Purpose: This retrospective longitudinal study was designed to investigate the overall dental utilization and utilization by categories of dental services accessed by pediatric refugees resettled in Washington State between 2015-2018. Furthermore, data from pediatric refugees is compared to Medicaid eligible pediatric non-refugees to explore similarities and differences in dental utilization.

Methods: This study is powered by a deidentified dataset compiled from shared data between three state agencies: The Department of Health (DOH), Health Care Authority (HCA) and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Refugees were matched to Medicaid eligible pediatric non-refugees in a ratio of 1:3. Data over 36 months of follow-up is examined for demographics and dental claims information (CDT-9 codes). Analysis performed included descriptive statistics and ANOVA with critical values set at 5%.

Results: Refugees had an overall higher % of dental utilizers. From 2015-2018 mean claims for refugees were higher in all categories except orthodontics and miscellaneous Refugees showed a year over year decrease in both mean total claims and mean claims by categories in all areas except orthodontics. Notably restorative and surgical claims were substantially higher in refugees at year 1 but reduce by year 3 to be similar to non-refugees.