Oral Health Challenges Among Children with Special Health Care Needs and Children with Medical Complexity

Oral health is essential to children’s overall well-being. Poor oral health is associated with physical health problems, negative impacts on school attendance and academic performance, and poorer mental health. Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) face barriers to accessing high-quality dental care and experience greater unmet dental care needs and oral health problems than those without special health care needs. 

NORC at the University of Chicago conducted a comprehensive, national study to better understand the oral health needs and dental care experiences of CSHCN and compared these experiences to those of children without special health care needs. NORC’s mixed methods approach included conducting a quantitative analysis of oral health status and dental care use and access among these populations using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health. This fact sheet spotlights the unique experiences of one key subgroup of CSHCN, children with medical complexity.