Epidemiology of Oral Diseases in Children and Trends in UK

• Uses of epidemiology in dentistry:

  • Description
  • Measure dental disease in a population
  • Understanding
  • Identify aetiological factors in dental disease
  • Application
  • Measure effectiveness of new materials and treatments
  • Assess needs and demands for services - inform planning
• An index has to be:

  • Valid (measures the disease we're trying to measure)
  • Reliable (i.e., if we measure something twice, we get the same answer)
  • Objective (if person looks at it, a definitive decision can be made - not subjective)
  • Simple (because it's being done across a large population, so it can't take a long time)
  • Reproducible (so that it can be done again and again)
  • Quantifiable (gives a numerical value so that it can be averaged across a population)
  • Sensitive (it will pick up the disease)
  • Acceptable (needs to be acceptable by the patient's standards)

  
• We know now, thanks to the CDH survey:

  • Caries decreasing and less teeth filled
  • Deprivation has a major role
  • Perio aspects mostly stable
  • OH gets worse until puberty then better
  • TSL increasing over time
  • Hypodontia prevalence
  • The impact of dental disease