Associations Among Individual, Family, and Community‐Level Influences on Caregiver‐Reported Perception of Their Child's Oral Health Status in the United States: A Preliminary Study

BACKGROUND: Pediatric patients rely on their caregivers to make informed decisions about their oral health, which are influenced by caregivers' perceptions and the factors that shape those perceptions. AIM: To evaluate if several individual, family, and community-level influences are associated with caregiver-reported perception of pediatric oral health in the United States using two self-reported measures as discordant or concordant perception. DESIGN: This cross-sectional study examined data from the 2021 National Survey of Children's Health using survey-weighted bivariate analyses and multivariable logistic regression to explore predictors of multilevel influences of caregiver-reported perception of children's oral health. RESULTS: Of 29 452 caregiver participants, discordant perception was most strongly associated with having children ages 6-12 years (AOR: 2.27, 95% CI: 1.86, 2.77), lacking child health insurance (AOR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.16, 2.85), not being from a two-caregiver household (AOR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.26, 2.16), positive special healthcare needs status (AOR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.12, 1.68), having at least one caregiver born outside of the United States (AOR: 1.35, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.68), and education ≤ high school (AOR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.65). CONCLUSION: Factors across multiple levels were associated with discordant caregiver-reported perception of pediatric oral health status of US children.