The development of a directed population approach to tackle inequalities in dental caries prevalence among secondary school children based on a small area profile.

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 gradie...

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Published in:Central European Journal of Public Health Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 65 - 71
Main Authors: Sagheri D, Hahn P, Hellwig E, Sagheri, Darius, Hahn, Petra, Hellwig, Elmar
Format: research Journal Article
Published: Central European Journal of Public Health 2008
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      pub: Central European Journal of Public Health
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        atl: The development of a directed population approach to tackle inequalities in dental caries prevalence among secondary school children based on a small area profile.
      aug:
        au:
          Sagheri D
          Hahn P
          Hellwig E
          Sagheri, Darius
          Hahn, Petra
          Hellwig, Elmar
        affil: Department of Orthodontics, School of Dental Science, University of Cologne, Germany
      sug:
        subj:
          Dental Caries Epidemiology
          Social Class
          Child
          Clinical Assessment Tools
          Cluster Analysis
          Dental Caries Prevention and Control
          Female
          Germany
          Male
          Prevalence
          Human
          Child: 6-12 years
          Female
          Male
      ab: 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.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
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        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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