There is a large population of individuals who have untreated tooth decay. As you can see via the graph, tooth decay left untreated is often disproportionately higher in the less educated and minorities. Why is this?
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There are many places a person can go to get treated without breaking the bank. To experiment with this, one can do a simple web search for " free dental care
austin, tx", replacing Austin with your city. There on the first page for me is a clinic available a few minutes from downtown labeled as a low-income dental clinic, and they offer payment plans. With this in mind, perhaps the more legitimate reason more people wait until the last minute is a phobia of the dentist.In a study done in the Netherlands in 2009, 1,959 Dutch adults aged 18-93 were surveyed as to individual phobias. Four of these phobias were dental fear, fear of snakes, heights, and physical injury. Each one particularly frightening in its own way no doubt. This information is helpful in understanding how phobic the average person is in getting dental caries treated.
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The majority of subjects rated fear of snakes as one of their greatest phobias. However, dental fear comes in at a close second. Thus, according to the data gathered the average Dutch resident would prefer facing the dental chair than be faced with a snake.
"Dental Caries (Tooth Decay) in Adults (Age 20 to 64)." National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
, 1 Jan. 2005. Web. 5 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/DataStatistics/FindDataByTopic/DentalCaries/DentalCariesAdults20to64.htm>
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