Child Dental Benefits Schedule Subsidised Existing Utilisation of Dental Care over Addressing Unmet Needs

Table 1

Characteristics of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children included in this study and the year of implementation of the Child Dental Benefits Schedule (2014).

		Study participants		Missing
		n = 7301		n
		n	(%)
Child Dental Benefits Schedule estimated eligibility	No	1741	(25.7)	535
	Yes	5025	(74.3)
Cohort	Birth	3764	(51.6)	0
	Kindergarten	3537	(48.4)
State of residence	New South Wales	2195	(30.1)	0
	Victoria	1727	(23.7)
	Queensland	1614	(22.1)
	South Australia	496	(6.8)
	Western Australia	759	(10.4)
	Tasmania	231	(3.2)
	Norther Territory	89	(1.2)
	Australian Capital Territory	190	(2.6)
Socioeconomic Index of Advantage/Disadvantage (deciles)^‡	Low (1 to 4)	2409	(33.0)	1
	Middle (5 to 7)	2285	(31.3)
	High (8 to 10)	2606	(35.7)
Indigenous status	Non-Indigenous	7110	(97.4)	2
	Indigenous	189	(2.6)
Weekly household income^⸸	Q1	1682	(24.9)	535
	Q2	1707	(25.2)
	Q3	1686	(24.9)
	Q4	1691	(25.0)
Remoteness area (ABS)	Major cities	4617	(63.2)	0
	Inner regional	1675	(22.9)
	Outer regional	885	(12.1)
	Remote and very remote	124	(1.7)
Parent-reported medical condition/s	No	6792	(95.0)	152
	Yes	357	(5.0)
Number of parent-reported dental visits three waves pre-CDBS	None	869	(11.9)	0
	One	1668	(22.8)
	Two	2278	(31.2)
	Three	2027	(27.8)
	Uncertain	459	(6.3)

LSAC: Longitudinal Study of Australian Children; CDBS: Child Dental Benefits Schedule. ^‡Low Socioeconomic Index of Advantage/Disadvantage indicates low area-level socioeconomic position. ^⸸Continuous variable weekly household income estimates fixed to quartiles; Q1 = $1435, Q2 = $2201, Q3 = $3133, and Q4 = 5485.