RESEARCH ARTICLE Rural–urban differences in i

People living in rural and inner-city regions often face significant barriers (such as lack of dental insurance, transportation and shortage of providers) in accessing dental care [1-5], have greater unmet dental need and consequently report poorer oral health status [5-7]. Studies on differences in dental service use in rural and urban areas have primarily focused on enrollees of public insurance programs and on differences in utilization rates, usually defined as the percentage of population having an annual dental visit [3-5,8]. These studies have reported profound disparities in utilization rates with residents of rural areas having significantly fewer dental visits [3-5,8]. Differences in provision of dental procedures can be used as measures of disparities in dental care. However, very few studies have examined rural vs. urban differ-ences in provision of dental procedures [9-11]. Brennan et al., found that among Australian adults served b