Child Abuse/Neglect and the Oral Health of Children's Primary Dentition

Abstract

This paper compares oral health status and presence of untreated, decayed primary teeth in 42 confirmed cases of child abuse with 822 non-abused controls. The 864 children (ages 3-11) came from military families at one Army installation. We assessed oral health status using the dfs (decayed and filled surfaces) index and derived presence of untreated, decayed teeth from the decayed and unfilled component of each child's dfs score. Using logistic regression, we determined the influence of abuse status and other sociodemographic characteristics on both outcome measures. Results show that abuse status does not contribute to differences in oral health status, but it does contribute to differences in presence of untreated, decayed primary teeth. Abused children with sponsors assigned to noncombat units are 5.2 times more likely to have untreated, decayed primary teeth than other children. These results suggest that military child abuse intervention efforts should include referral for dental care plus the need to target younger children from families with non-combatant sponsors.