The development of a directed population approach to tackle inequalities in dental caries prevalence among secondary school children based on a small area profile.
Cent Eur J Public Health
; 16(2): 65-70, 2008 Jun.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-18661808
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
It has been observed that the prevalence of dental caries among children has declined in the last decade in Germany. However, despite of these improvements there is still a proportion of children suffering from dental decay.AIMS:
The aims of this study were to evaluate if a social gradient in the prevalence of dental caries exists and, based on those findings, to develop a strategy to target those children with heightened risk to develop dental caries in order to assist oral health care professionals to refocus the current uniform school-based dental health programme to a caries preventive strategy based on a directed population approach.DESIGN:
A representative, random sample of 12-year olds in Freiburg (Germany) was examined and dental caries was recorded using WHO criteria. Educational attainment of the child's parents was used as an indicator of socio-economic status and classified by use of the CASMIN Educational Classification.RESULTS:
A total of 322 children participated. An examination of dental caries score revealed that its distribution was positively skewed. For this reason this study provides summary analyses based on medians and a non-parametric rank-sum test. The Kruskal-Wallis H-test showed a significant difference between median scores across the different educational levels (p-value = 0.015) which was due to lower dental caries levels in children with non-deprived social background.CONCLUSIONS:
In order to reduce current social inequalities in child oral health the current uniform school-based dental health programme at secondary school level should be developed to a targeted school-based screening and prevention programme.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Classe Social
/
Cárie Dentária
País/Região como assunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2008
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Alemanha