Methods: Articles published from 1980 to 2012 were retrieved. The search was performed using three Chinese databases (China Academic Journals Full-text Database, China Master’s Theses Full-text Database, China Doctoral Dissertations Full-text Database) and two English electronic databases (PubMed, ISI Web of Science). The key words used for searching were (dental caries OR caries OR decay) AND (ethnic minority OR ethnic groups) AND (China or Chinese) AND (child OR children OR adolescent OR student). Articles that met the inclusion criteria were grouped into primary or permanent dentition group according to the age of the surveyed children. The key findings according to ethnic group were summarized.
Results: Thirty-eight studies were included in this review. There were 20 ethnic groups among the 3- 6-year-old children included in the studies of primary dentition, and 23 ethnic groups among the 11-14-year-old children included in the studies of permanent dentition. Dental caries varied amongst ethnic minorities groups. The median caries prevalence and mean dmft score in primary dentition are 51% and 3.0, respectively, whereas those in permanent dentition are 39% and 0.8, respectively. There were no data on children from the other 30 ethnic minorities in China.
Conclusion: Although oral health surveys had been conducted on 25 of the minority groups, the survey methods of these studies were not standardized, and thus comparison between studies is difficult. More studies with appropriate design should be carried out to identify high risk groups for early intervention.