Estimating Oral Health in Aboriginal Australians

Methods: NSAOH used a stratified random sample of the Australian population. The urban Aboriginal study was on a convenience sample of adults attending a community health centre. In both cases dental examinations were undertaken by trained and calibrated dental examiners. The proportion with a DMFT = 0 as well as mean DMFT and its components were examined.

Results: NSAOH examinations were conducted on 5505 adults, 72 of whom were Aboriginal, the urban Aboriginal study had 251 participants. For non- Aboriginal Australians under 35 years the proportion with a DMFT = 0 in NSAOH was 24.3%, compared to Aboriginal Australians of 11.2%, whereas among the urban Aboriginal population the proportion was 5.2%. Similar results were found for severity with mean DMFT of non-Aboriginal Australians in NSAOH of 4.5, NSAOH Aboriginal Australians 7.0 and among urban Aboriginal Australian 10.2. In a study in one remote area of 377 adults 18-24 years the DMFT was 4.61, and in another with 215 adults 18-34 years, DMFT was 3.6.

Conclusions: The Aboriginal adults who participated in NSAOH were not only different from the non-Aboriginal participants but were also different from the Aboriginal adult population generally. Localised surveys even with a moderate sample size may also be biased and results need to be considered carefully when policy decisions are to be made.