ASSOCIATION BETWEEN DENTAL STATUS AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITY INDICATORS IN SCHOOL CHILDREND

OBJECTIVES: to associate social vulnerability indicators with the prevalence and severity of dental caries in children attending primary public schools of Buenos Aires. METHODS: on an intentional sample of 542 schoolchildren (age ? = 6.7 [6-9]), attending 4 primary public schools of Buenos Aires, a dental examination was performed to establish the presence and severity of dental caries, performed under standardized conditions by 4 calibrated researchers (Kappa ≥ 0.75), after requesting the signing of an informed consent for participation in the study to the legal tutors and the consent of the schoolchildren. To characterize the situation of social vulnerability of households, a self-completed questionnaire was applied that included information on habitat (housing: property, sanitation, infrastructure), human capital (health, education), social protection, social capital. The presence of caries was established according to ICDAS II criteria, and this variable was operationalized by establishing 2 groups: percentage of incipient caries: ICDAS code 1-2 / total areas; and percentage of cavitated caries: ICDAS code 3-6 / total surfaces. The distribution of frequencies and percentages for categorical variables was calculated, and for the quantitative variables, average and standard error were obtained. To establish differences between groups, the Student t test was used for independent samples. RESULTS: 33% of children came from single parents. 40% of parents were born in bordering countries. 30% of parents did not finish high school. 41% have a social plan. 75.9% only public health coverage. The prevalence of caries was 93%, with 14.83 ± 0.67 of carious surfaces. The % of incipient caries was 6.8 ± 0.31; and the % of cavitated caries was 8.7 ± 0.45. An association was found between households receiving a social plan and the % total caries (p = 0.04); % incipient caries (p = 0.02) and% cavitated caries (p = 0.08). Conclusions: the highest prevalence and severity of dental caries in schoolchildren were observed in households that receive a social plan.