ArticleCanadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique2017
The 1% of emergency room visits for non-traumatic dental conditions in British Columbia: Misconceptions about the numbers.
Article in Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Preventable Dental Related Emergency Department Visits and Hospital Admissions: A Systematic Review of Economic Burden and Healthcare System Costs.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- Non-traumatic dental presentations at accident and emergency departments in the UK: a systematic review.British dental journal · 2020Pooled it
- Canada's "American-style" dental health system.Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada = Journal officiel de l'Association pour la microbiologie medicale et l'infectiologie Canada · 2025Article
- Policy Options to Complement the New Canadian Dental Program Enabling High Quality Care for People With Disabilities and Older Adults.Gerodontology · 2025Review
- Dental Service and Resource Needs during COVID-19 among Underserved Populations.JDR clinical and translational research · 2022Article
- Access to oral care is a human rights issue: a community action report from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada.Harm reduction journal · 2022Review
- Providing dental insurance can positively impact oral health outcomes in Ontario.BMC health services research · 2020Article
- Factors Associated with Preventable Emergency Department Visits for Nontraumatic Dental Conditions in the U.S.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Special section on dental public health: A collaboration between the Canadian Journal of Public Health and the Canadian Association of Public Health Dentistry.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In Canada, about 1% of all emergency room (ER) visits in a given year are made by patients with a primary diagnosis of a non-traumatic, non-urgent and yet preventable condition, such as tooth decay. This percentage is typically dismissed as irrelevant. Using 2013-2014 British Columbia data on ER use from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, however, we argue that the 1% figure (and its associated cost) has to be considered beyond its percentage value. In 2013-2014 alone, 12 357 non-traumatic dental visits were made to ERs in BC representing 1% of the total number of ER visits at a cost of $154.8 million to the taxpayers (across Canada, all visits to ER cost $1.8 billion/year). But the vast majority of these dental visits are discharged while the oral problem likely persists, hence taxpayer dollars are wasted. The belief that these dental-related ER visits are insignificant within the total cost for the health care system is misleading: treatment is not given, the problem is not resolved, and yet there is a high cost to taxpayers and to the society at large. Public health resources should be reallocated.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.