Caries in 3-5 years-old, Finnish children participating in public dental car during 1975-79.

Abstract

Nationwide and regional participation in the newly started dental care system, occurrence of caries and proportion of children registered to be in need of restorative treatment during 1974-1979 were studied in 3-5-year-old Finnish children. The data were collected from the annual reports of municipal dental health centers. The mean annual proportion of children participating in the care increased from 27% in 1974 to 71% in 1979. A clear improvement was noticed in each county, especially in areas where the earlier situation was poor. During the study period an average proportion of entirely cariesfree children increased from 24% at the beginning to 57% at the end of the study. The mean annual proportion of children recorded to be in need of restorative care decreased from 61% at the beginning to 32% at the end of the study period. The mean dmft value decreased from 3.7 in 1974 to 1.7 in 1979. A strong inverse relationship existed between the dental health at the beginning of the study period and the extent of changes in dental health during the 6-year-period. Thus regional differences having greatly diminished since the introduction of the public dental care system.