Association between the longest job and oral health: Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study project cross-sectional study

Background: Inequality in oral health is a major challenge. Oral diseases and their risk factors accumulate throughout life. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to examine the association of longest job with oral health status and oral health behavior among older Japanese. Methods: Subjects were a total of 23,191 (11,310 males and 11,881 females) community-dwelling individuals aged 65 or over, living independently and able to perform daily activities from 30 municipalities across Japan. The outcome variables were oral health status (number of teeth, use of denture or bridge and subjective oral health status) and oral health behavior (dental visit for treatment and use of interdental brush or dental floss). The longest job was used as an explanatory variable. Age, educational attainment, equivalent income, and densities of dentists and population in municipalities were used as covariates. Two-level (first level: individual, second level: municipality) multilevel Poisson regression analyses were performed for each sex. Results: Multilevel Poisson regression analyses showed that all variables of oral health status and oral health behavior were significantly associated with longest job after adjusting for all covariates except denture/bridge use and dental visit for females. People whose longest jobs were sales/service, skilled/labor, agriculture/forestry/fishery or others, or who had no occupation were more likely to have poor oral health status and oral health behavior compared to those whose longest jobs were professional/technical. Conclusions: The longest job may be one of the major determinants of oral health status and oral health behavior in Japanese older people.