We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DIRECTED POPULATION APPROACH TO TACKLE INEQUALITIES IN DENTAL CARIES PREVALENCE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL CHILDREN BASED ON A SMALL AREA PROFILE.
- Authors
Sagheri, Darius; Hahn, Petra; Hellwig, Elmar
- 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.
- Subjects
FREIBURG (Germany : Regierungsbezirk); GERMANY; DENTAL caries in children; DENTAL health education; DENTAL care; EQUALITY
- Publication
Central European Journal of Public Health, 2008, Vol 16, Issue 2, p65
- ISSN
1210-7778
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.21101/cejph.a3469