IADR Abstract Archives

Children's Oral Health Along the Belt and Road.

Objectives: To report on the dental caries experience of children across BRI countries (member states) and to determine variations in dental caries experiences with respect to geographical regions (BRI routes).
Methods: Dental caries experience of 5-year-old and 12-year-old children was obtained from the World Health Organization (WHO) oral health database. Data was assessed for completeness and contemporariness. Following on, variations in dental caries experiences were determined across BRI routes accordingly to (i) world bank calssificantion and (iii) WHO classification.
Results: Less than a third (29.8%, 42/141) of BRI member states had 5-year-old dental caries experience available. Most (95.7%, 135/141) BRI member states had 12-year-old dental caries experience data. The contemporariness (up-to-datedness) of dental caries experience data varied; 45.2% (19/42) of 5-year-old data and 25.9% (35/135) of 12-year-old data were from the past decade (since 2010). The mean dental caries experience at age 5 among BRI member states was 3.6 (SD 2.2), and dmft varies across BRI routes, p<0.001. The mean dental caries experience at age 12 among BRI member states was 1.9 (SD 1.2), and DMFT varies across BRI routes, p<0.001.
Conclusions: Availability and up-to-datedness of dental caries experience data for children vary among BRI member states and across BRI routes. Dental caries experiences data is more readily available for 12-year-olds than 5-year-olds. However, data is not very up-to-date. Statistically significant variations in children's dental caries experience, both for 5-year-olds and 12-year-olds, exist across BRI routes. These findings have implications in addressing oral health needs as part of the Belt & Road Initiative

2021 South East Asian Division Meeting (Hong Kong)
Hong Kong
2021
017
Behavioral, Epidemiologic and Health Services Research
  • Mcgrath, Colman  ( University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong , Hong Kong )
  • Deng, Bixia  ( University of Hong Kong , Shenzhen , China )
  • None
    Oral Session
    Oral health research I
    Wednesday, 12/08/2021 , 10:15AM - 11:45AM