Prediction of health care costs by dental health care costs and periodontal status

Abstract

Reducing heath care costs is an important issue in Japan. The aim of this study was to analyze the contribution of oral health to health care costs and to predict health care costs by statistical modeling. Data from 46 individuals (29 men and 17 women; mean age of 44.6 1.7 years) on health care costs, dental health care costs, and the results of the salivary levels of lactate dehydrogenase (LD) over two years were provided by the association. Multilayer perceptron neural networks were applied to predict the health care costs from data from the previous year and included health care costs, dental health care costs, and salivary levels of LD. Nonlinear relationships were observed between medical health care costs, dental health care costs, and periodontal conditions. The health care costs from the previous year were the most important predictor of health care costs. The simulation results showed that health care costs decreased with the increase in dental health care costs from the previous year. Health care costs increased with increasing salivary levels of LD from the previous year. Improvements in periodontal conditions and dental health care may play some roles in reducing health care costs.