Exposure to household dysfunction at childhood and later number of teeth among older Japanese adults: A life course study from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study

Objectives

The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the life course association between exposure to two household dysfunctions (father violence against mother and parental divorce) at childhood (≤18 years) with later number of remaining teeth (≥65 years) in functionally independent older Japanese population. This was the first study to investigate this research question in the Asian context.

Methods

The Japan Gerontological Evaluation study (JAGES) self-reported retrospective data gathered in 2013 was used (n = 21,604). Each household dysfunction was binary variable (Yes/No), while the five categories of the number of remaining teeth were ≥20, 10–19, 5–9, 1–4, and no teeth. Sex-stratified ordered logistic regression models were used to calculate the odds ratios (OR) of having fewer teeth. The models were adjusted for age, economic adversity in childhood, educational attainment, comorbidities, and smoking status.

Results

Overall, 46.4% were men and a total of 1149 participants (5.3%) experienced household dysfunction at childhood [men = 642 (6.4%), women = 507 (4.4%)]. The regression models showed higher OR of having fewer teeth among men who experienced a household dysfunction [OR = 1.16; 95% Confidence interval (CI) = 1.00–1.36] than men who did not. This association was not observed among women [OR = 0.94; 95% CI = 0.79–1.13]. Similar magnitude and direction of the association was observed among men but not among women when the two components of household dysfunction were used separately and aggregately as exposure variables.

Conclusion

An exposure to a household dysfunction at childhood was associated with having fewer teeth in later life among men but not among women.