Abstract
Although inequalities in dental caries have been well-reported, there is only one Mongolian study on the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and caries experience, which was published ten years ago. This study aimed to determine the dental health status of Mongolian children living in urban and suburban areas of Ulaanbaatar city and examine its association with income and parental educational attainment. An oral examination was conducted by dentists and caries were measured as deft/DMFT indices. A questionnaire including demographic characteristics and socioeconomic status was completed by their parents or caregiver. Parental educational attainment and household income were used as the measures of SES. The relative index of inequality (RII) and slope index of inequality (SII) were employed to examine the association between SES on deft and DMFT after adjusting for covariates. Dental caries prevalence (those with deft/DMFT > 0) was 89.3% among the total number of participants. The mean deft/DMFT values for age groups 1–6, 7–12, and 13–18 were 5.83 (SD = 4.37, deft), 5.77 (SD = 3.31, deft/DMFT), and 3.59 (SD = 2.69, DMFT), respectively. Rather than residence area and parental educational attainment, significant caries experience inequality was observed in relation to income (RII 0.65 95%, CI 0.52 to 0.82, SII −2.30, 95% CI −4.16 to −0.45). A prevention strategy for lower socioeconomic groups and building integrated oral health surveillance to monitor epidemiological trends for further evaluation of its progress is necessary.
Highlights
Oral diseases are highly prevalent globally, posing major public health issues [1,2,3,4] and considerably affecting the quality of life [5]
Burden of Disease 2015 Study reported a high prevalence of oral disease, with a 64% increase in disability-adjusted life years due to oral conditions throughout the world, and it has been reported that oral health has not improved for 25 years [10]
The caries deft/DMFT did not differ between those who visited dental clinics for preventive measurement and those who visited them after experiencing toothache
Summary
Oral diseases are highly prevalent globally, posing major public health issues [1,2,3,4] and considerably affecting the quality of life [5]. In spite of governments’ and nongovernmental agencies’ extensive investment in research and dental services, the trajectories of dental diseases are socially patterned, and are substantially more prevalent among poorer and disadvantaged populations [6,7,8,9]. Social inequalities in oral health exist globally, irrespective of the state of development of countries, and a social gradient in oral health is a universal phenomenon found at all points in the life course and in different population groups across. Public Health 2019, 16, 3892; doi:10.3390/ijerph16203892 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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