Kaye, ElizabethAsghar, Chaudhry Umar2025-07-302025-07-302025https://hdl.handle.net/2144/507792025OBJECTIVE: To examine the association in children aged 1-15 years between milk type consumption and their dental caries prevalence, using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). METHODS: Data included 7,429 participants, aged 1-15, from NHANES 2015-2020. Milk consumption was categorized into four groups: No Milk Group (children who consumed no milk at all), Cow Milk Group (children who consumed only cow milk), Soy Milk Group (children who consumed soy milk, with or without cow milk, but no other types of milk), and Other Milk Group (children who consumed any other form of plant based milk exclusively, or in combination with cow’s and/or or soy milk). Dental caries were assessed using the Decayed Teeth (DT/dt) index (presence/absence). Participants with missing information on the milk and dental caries were excluded. Crude and logistic regression models examined caries association with milk types currently consumed (“no milk”, “cow’s milk”, “soy milk” and “another type of milk”). Covariates include age, gender, race/ethnicity, birth country, family income to poverty ratio, language spoken in interview, total 2-day 24-hour mean sugar consumption, and dental visit frequency. RESULTS: Most children consumed cow’s milk (89.2%), followed by other milk types (6.1%) and no milk (3.31%), while soymilk consumption was the lowest (1.4%). No statistically significant crude or adjusted associations were found between milk types and dental caries. Children aged 12-15 had the highest odds of having cavities (aOR=8.89, 95% CI:5.62-14.07) compared to children aged 1-5. A clear socioeconomic trend was observed, with lower-income children exhibiting significantly higher odds of dental caries compared to high-income children (aOR = 3.70, 95% CI: 2.314–5.936). Non-US-born children and children with less frequent dentist visits showed higher odds of dental caries. CONCLUSION: Our study did not find an association between different milk type consumed and caries in American children and adolescents. This is encouraging as many families are altering their diet to include alternative milks, which do not seem to increase the risk for dental caries.  en-USAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Health sciencesNutritionPublic healthDental cariesMilk consumptionNHANESPediatric oral healthPlant-based milkSocioeconomic factorsThesis/Dissertation2025-07-29https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9984-7815