ArticleCommunity dentistry and oral epidemiology2026
Does Oral Health Status Predict Incident Frailty Over the 13-Year Follow-Up in Older Adults in England?
Article in Community dentistry and oral epidemiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Frailty and oral health among middle-aged and older adults: findings from the English longitudinal study of ageing.BMC oral health · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesThis study aimed to assess longitudinal associations between oral health and incident frailty, assessed by a multidimensional frailty index, in a national sample of older adults in England with participant mortality and drop out considered as competing risks.
methodsA nationally representative sample of adults aged ≥ 50 from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) was analysed. Oral health was assessed using edentulousness, self-rated oral health and the Oral Impacts on Daily Performances (OIDP) measures. Frailty was evaluated with the Rockwood frailty index. Competing risks regression models assessed the association between oral health at Wave 3 (2006/7) and incident frailty up to Wave 9 (2018/19), sequentially adjusting for demographic characteristics, socioeconomic factors and smoking, and accounting for participants' mortality and dropout.
resultsOf 5760 non-frail respondents at baseline, 1395 (24.2%) became frail during the 13-years follow-up. Edentate males had 1.40 (1.12-1.76) times higher risk of incident frailty than dentate males, whereas the association was not significant among females. Respondents with fair or poor self-rated oral health had 1.48 (1.29-1.70) times and those that reported oral impacts had 1.85 (1.54-2.21) times higher risk of incident frailty than those reporting better oral health and no oral impacts respectively. Oral impacts on functional aspects (i.e., difficulties eating and speaking) were associated with increased incident frailty risk.
conclusionsPoor oral health can serve as a 'canary in the coal mine' and act as an early marker of frailty development among older adults in England. Future research should investigate whether public health strategies, such as oral health promotion and disease prevention, can help reduce the risk of frailty in later life.
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.