Food expenditures, cariogenic dietary practices and childhood dental caries in southern Brazil.

Family expenditures on food for children may represent an important barrier to the adoption of healthy feeding practices in populations of low socioeconomic status. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between cariogenic feeding practices, expenditures on food for children and dental caries. This cross-sectional study included 329 four-year-old children from São Leopoldo in southern Brazil. Cariogenic dietary practices were assessed at 4 years of age using two 24-hour recalls conducted with the children's mothers. Expenditures on food for children were estimated based on all reported food items and the respective amounts ingested. Early childhood caries and severe early childhood caries were assessed by clinical examination at 4 years of age. Cariogenic dietary habits were not associated with lower food expenditures. On the contrary, in multivariable regression analysis, the intake of chocolate (p = 0.007), soft drinks (p = 0.027) and a higher number of meals and snacks per day (p < 0.001) was associated with greater expenditures on food for children. No statistically significant differences were observed in food expenditures or in the proportion of household income spent on feeding children between caries-free children, those with early childhood caries and those with severe early childhood caries. In conclusion, keeping children free of dental caries does not necessarily increase food expenditures or the proportion of household income spent on feeding children in low-socioeconomic status populations. Some cariogenic dietary practices were associated with greater expenditures on child feeding.

Examining the implications of dental treatment costs for low-income families.

OBJECTIVE: Dental disease is concentrated among those with low socioeconomic status. Dental care is not publicly funded, and many Canadians must therefore make difficult financial choices when accessing dental care. Families who live in poverty have difficulty meeting even their most basic household needs, so dental treatment may not be affordable. The objective of this study was to understand how the cost of dental treatment affects the monthly budgets of families with low incomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A chart review was conducted for a sample of 213 new patients examined at the Dalhousie University dental clinic over a 1-year period. Costs for proposed treatment plans were averaged. The patients" ability to pay for proposed treatment was examined in the context of various income scenarios. RESULTS: Two hundred and one patients were included in the final analysis. Dental treatment costs per patient averaged approximately $1600 for the year, with 42% of the planned treatment completed within the first year. The estimated monthly cost of completed treatment was $55. When the cost of a healthy diet was included in the monthly budget, it was determined that families in Nova Scotia with parents working for minimum wage and those receiving income assistance would experience a 100% shortfall for dental expenses. CONCLUSIONS: Low-income families in Nova Scotia were unable to afford both a nutritious diet and dental care. This is disturbing, given the links between a healthy diet and both overall health and dental health. An understanding of the significance of income shortfalls for those with low incomes, especially as they affect even basic nutritional needs, will help dental professionals to appreciate the seriousness of this issue and the difficulties that many Canadians face when trying to access basic dental care.

Pragmatic selection of larval mosquito diets for insectary rearing of Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti.

Larval mosquitoes are aquatic omnivorous scavengers which scrape food from submerged surfaces and collect suspended food particles with their mouth brushes. The composition of diets that have been used in insectaries varies widely though necessarily provides sufficient nutrition to allow colonies to be maintained. Issues such as cost, availability and experience influence which diet is selected. One component of larval diets, essential fatty acids, appears to be necessary for normal flight though deficiencies may not be evident in laboratory cages and are likely more important when mosquitoes are reared for release into the field in e.g. mark-release-recapture and genetic control activities. In this study, four diets were compared for rearing Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti, all of which provide these essential fatty acids. Two diets were custom formulations specifically designed for mosquitoes (Damiens) and two were commercially available fish foods: Doctors Foster and Smith Koi Staple Diet and TetraMin Plus Flakes. Development rate, survival, dry weight and adult longevity of mosquitoes reared with these four diets were measured. The method of presentation of one diet, Koi pellets, was additionally fed in two forms, pellets or a slurry, to determine any effect of food presentation on survival and development rate. While various criteria might be selected to choose 'the best' food, the readily-available Koi pellets resulted in development rates and adult longevity equal to the other diets, high survival to the adult stage and, additionally, this is available at low cost.

The impact of food structure on taste and digestibility.

The modern food chain depends on complex interactions between businesses from farming to retail. Until recently their success depended upon providing consumers with safe, convenient food which was pleasant to eat, at a reasonable value for money. This has required detailed research into how food structures deliver recognisable and preferred types of foods, from hard solids to thick liquids. Fortunately the consumer is able to detect and report sensations of texture and flavour which can be related to the composition, structure and breakdown of food in the mouth. Chemists, physicists and engineers can attempt to build mechanistic models of how structures relate to perception. The state of the art in our understanding and design capabilities are reviewed. In the developed world, the success is self evident as food prices (as a proportion of income) have decreased and there is a surfeit of choice on the supermarket shelf. More recently, the requirement to add a balanced healthy diet to the simple pleasure of eating has become the new target. This is a different type of challenge. The effects of diet on health are long term, and not easily reported by the consumer. Whilst we know something of how the digestive tract works in breaking down foods, we know little of how food structure impacts upon this process, and even less of how the neural and metabolic feedback systems operate to relate food structures to satiety and satiation. Therefore, in the absence of causal models relating structures to eating habits, structures designed to achieve both immediate pleasure and long term healthy eating are much more speculative. What we think we know, and what we need to know are reviewed. There is no doubt that other skills, in nutrition, physiology, neuroscience, and molecular biology etc. will need to be added to the classical approaches of food materials science and engineering if these challenges are to be met.

[Costs analysis system; its location within a program for food, nutrition and metabolic intervention]. / SISTEMA DE ANÁLISIS DE COSTES; SU LUGAR DENTRO DE UN PROGRAMA DE INTERVENCIÓN ALIMENTARIA, NUTRIMENTAL Y METABÓLICA.

Every medical surgical action implies costs. Costs of medical provisions should be translated into tangible, and thus, measurable, benefits for the health status of the patient. Nutritional support therapies might increase the costs of medical provisions, but it is expected their implementation to result in lower morbidity and mortality rates as well as shortening of hospital stay, all of them leading to important savings. It is then required the assimilation of tools for costs analysis for a better management of nutritional support therapies. A proposal for the design of a hospital system (regarded anywhere in this text as SHACOST) for the analysis of the costs of interventions conducted in a patient in accordance with the guidelines included in the Metabolic, Nutrient and Food Intervention Program (referred everywhere for its Spanish acronym PRINUMA) is presented in this article. Hence, strategies are described to estimate the costs of a specified intervention. In addition, a primer on cost-effectiveness (ACE) and incremental cost-effectiveness (ACEI) analyses is shown relying on examples taken from the authors's experience in the provision of nutritional care to patients electively operated for a colorectal cancer. Finally, costs of surgical treatment of a mandibular tumor are described, followed by a discussion on how a better impact of the adopted surgical action could be achieved without considerable increases in total costs should a perioperatory nutritional support program be included. Implementation of SHACOST can provide the medical care teams with accounting tools required to assess the effectiveness of hospital nutritional support schemes, decide whether to acquire and introduce new technologies, and measure the impact of the performance of hospital forms for provision of nutritional care upon health management and perceived quality of life of the patient and their relatives.

Toda acción médico-quirúrgica implica costes. Los costes de las prestaciones de salud deben traducirse en beneficios tangibles y, por ende, medibles, para el estado de salud del enfermo. Las terapias de apoyo nutricional pueden incrementar los costes de las prestaciones de salud, pero se espera que la implementación de las mismas redunde en menores tasas de morbi-mortalidad y acortamiento de la estadía hospitalaria, todo lo cual produciría ahorros importantes. Se hace necesario entonces la inculturación de herramientas de análisis de costes para la mejor gestión de las terapias de apoyo nutricional. En este artículo se expone la propuesta de diseño del SHACOST (Sistema Hospitalario de Análisis de Costes) de las intervenciones que se realicen en un enfermo de acuerdo con las pautas recogidas en el PRINUMA, (Programa de Intervención Alimentaria, Nutrimental y Metabólica). En virtud de ello, se describen las estrategias para la estimación de los costes de una intervención especificada. Asimismo, se muestran rudimentos de análisis de coste-efectividad (ACE) y coste-efectividad incremental (ACEI) mediante ejemplos tomados de la experiencia de los autores en la provisión de cuidados nutricionales al paciente operado electivamente de cáncer colorrectal. Finalmente, se describen los costes del tratamiento quirúrgico de un tumor de mandíbula, y se discute cómo se hubiera logrado un mejor impacto de la conducta quirúrgica adoptada sin incrementos considerables de los costes totales de la misma de haber incluido un programa de apoyo nutricional perioperatorio. La implementación del SHACOST puede proveer a los grupos básicos de trabajo de las herramientas contables indispensables para evaluar la efectividad de los esquemas hospitalarios de apoyo nutricional, decidir sobre la adquisición e introducción de nuevas tecnologías, y medir el impacto de la actuación de las formas hospitalarias de provisión de cuidados nutricionales sobre la gestión sanitaria y la calidad percibida de vida del enfermo y sus familiares.

Raising children is expensive in the 1990s and beyond.

Costs of raising children continue to rise. At the same time, the marked increase in the proportion of two-earner families and single-parent families places added burdens on families to develop and pay for child care arrangements. A review is provided of current and anticipated financial costs of raising children during the 1990s and planning for the finances of their future years.