Dental health of men in the Royal Navy 1978–80

Abstract

SummarySince there have been few reports of the dental health status of armed service personnel, a survey was undertaken of 742 men in the Royal Navy/Royal Marines over the same period as the Adult Dental Health Survey of the United Kingdom in 1978. Free comprehensive dental care is available to armed service personnel in contrast to UK civilians who have poorer access and have to pay a share of the cost of dental care. It was thus possible to compare the effectiveness of two systems for maintaining adult dental health. Comparisons of dental health of men in the RN/RM and the UK were made for four 10 year age groups between 16 and 54 years. Edentulousness was much less common in the RN/RM reaching a maximum of 5% compared with 27% in the UK at age 45–54 years. The mean number of decayed teeth in dentate males in the RN/RM was 0.8 teeth or less in all 4 age-groups. The total DMFT was similar in the two groups except in the oldest 10 year age group where the RN/RM males had 2.3 sound teeth more than their civilian counterparts. The results suggest that although RN/RM men keep their teeth and have decayed teeth filled, any preventive care is masked by the high level of disease already present by early adulthood and the inability of the DMFT index to detect further treatment of teeth.