Assessment of oral morbidity and self rated health in the Indian geriatric population with a propensity score matched approach

The association between various diseases in the elderly and self-rated health (SRH) has been investigated in many prior studies. Our study aimed to investigate the relationship between oral health and SRH among the geriatric Indian population. The current study used data from the Longitudinal Study of Ageing in India (LASI), conducted during 2017-2018. Our research included 31,228 individuals aged ≥ 60 in the LASI analysis. The present study used univariate and bivariate analyses, including the chi-square test, binary logistic regression, and propensity matching score to accomplish the research objectives. Nearly 88% of the elderly population were exposed to poor oral health status. One-fourth of the older people had poor SRH. The elderly with poor oral health status had a higher prevalence of SRH compared to their counterparts. Propensity score matching (PSM) also showed that the likelihood of experiencing poor SRH exceeded by 5% points among the elderly with poor oral health compared to their counterparts. Our study's results demonstrated a higher prevalence of oral morbidities among the Indian elderly. It also established a significant and robust association of poor oral health status with poor SRH.