Evidence of downward trends in dental caries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Abstract

Data sources Medline, Popline, ExtraMed, Embase and Info Latino Americo were searched for the period 1 January 1970–31 December 2000. Keywords used were “dental caries” and names of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Reference lists from retrieved articles were also examined for more studies. Study selection For inclusion an article had to have clearly-defined ages within the groups (5–6, 11–13 years); use the World Health Organization caries diagnostic criteria; the sample had to be reasonably representative of the general population and contain at least 30 individuals; and examiners had to be calibrated. Data extraction and synthesis For each of the two age-groupings, the caries prevalence and caries severity data were plotted against the year of study. A nonlinear regression curve was fitted to each group of results, and a linear regression analysis was done to look for a significant departure from zero of the caries-rate trend with statistical significance set at P<0.05. This was done separately for the 21 countries in Latin America and 12 countries in the Caribbean. Results The search identified 438 articles: 172 were epidemiological studies, of which 30 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. A total of 16 countries were represented. Over the last 30 years, there has been a significant decrease in caries prevalence for 11–13-year-old children in Latin America. There was also a significant decrease in caries severity for 5–6-year-olds in Latin America, and for 11–13-year-olds in Latin America and the Caribbean. Conclusions This study showed some statistically significant downward trends in dental caries between 1970 and 2000 in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.