Catherine Maclean (@jcmecon.bsky.social)

State Paid Sick Leave Mandates and Receipt of Pediatric Preventive Dental Care 10.1542/6390794478112Video AbstractPEDS-VA_2025-0742766390794478112BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES. Biannual preventive dental visits are recommended to promote good oral health and identify problems, yet children in many families do not receive this care due to time-related barriers. Paid sick leave mandates have the potential to relieve parental time constraints and facilitate scheduling and attending pediatric dental visits; thus, we sought to evaluate the effects of state paid sick leave mandates on children’s receipt of preventive dental care.METHODS. Using 2016 to 2023 National Survey of Children’s Health data and a difference-in-differences approach, we compared trends in children’s receipt of preventive dental care in states that did and did not implement paid sick leave mandates.RESULTS. Pre-implementation of paid sick leave mandates, children residing in states that later implemented these policies were more likely to have received preventive dental care, to be non-Hispanic white, to have private health insurance, and to have parents with more than a high school education, relative to children residing in states that never implemented paid sick leave mandates. State paid sick leave mandates were associated with a 3.2% relative increase (95% CI: 0.2%, 6.2%) in rates of children receiving preventive dental care, controlling for time-varying demographic and policy characteristics, with state and year fixed effects.CONCLUSIONS. State-paid sick leave mandates may alleviate competing parental work and caregiving responsibilities and provide parents with additional time and flexibility to obtain dental care for their children. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2025-074276/207441/State-Paid-Sick-Leave-Mandates-and-Receipt-of?guestAccessKey=