A localised oral health study based on the School Dental Inspection system, and its implications for the proposed national oral health database.
From 1989 to 1994, the author carried out a dental health study on all children examined in two age groups during the routine annual School Dental Inspection. Dual criteria were applied; the first a clinical diagnosis to prioritise each child for follow-up dental treatment, and the second using standardised criteria for use in an epidemiological study. The two sets of information were kept separately. Analysis showed that the methodology was capable of eliciting differences in dental disease levels between adjacent localised geographical areas, and trends in disease levels over time. Fluctuations in the uptake of dental treatment, but not in actual caries levels. Although epidemiological information collected in this way may not be as reproducible as that collected in highly organised epidemiological point prevalence studies, it has several advantages in that large numbers of subjects may be examined with relatively little extra resources. The School Dental Inspection system may be a template on which localised data may be collected to form part of the proposed national oral health database. A follow-up study is proposed to assess how the twin track approach of an improved system of localised information collection based on the School Dental Inspection system coupled with standardised epidemiological studies might provide a framework for a system which would provide useful data at different levels of what is essentially a multi level dental service.
Brightman
S
S
Dental Department, St. Conal's Hospital, Letterkenny, County Donegal.
D002648:Child; D004245:DMF Index; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019140:Dental Care for Children / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology; D003753:Dental Health Surveys; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009909:Oral Health; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D012572:School Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data