Abstract
This research looks at the cause and effect of oral health inequities in the United States. The field of dentistry is a specialized form of health care that is devoted to preventing and treating oral disease and maintaining oral health. Successful patient outcomes in oral healthcare rely on a two-pronged approach. One is quality care delivered by dental providers, and the other is the adoption of daily oral self-care by the patient. Achieving oral health is the sum of collective circumstances not exclusive to an individual’s social, economic, biological or behavioral factors. Through a critical and integrative literature review of case studies, this analysis provides a framework for how the social determinants of health manifest in oral health outcomes and how essential elements of these social determinants can be addressed by the dental profession to improve patient oral health outcomes.
