TOOTH LOSS, THE CULTURE OF DENTISTRY AND THE DELIVERY OF DENTAL CARE IN NEW ZEALAND

Abstract

A recent cross‐national study has shown that a much higher proportion of adult New Zealanders have lost all their teeth — that is, are edentulous — in comparison with other countries with much the same levels of dental disease. Social class patterns of tooth loss also show a similar discrepancy.A subsequent nation‐wide survey of adult New Zealanders has shown that dental attitudes and practices are largely consistent with professional opinion, with some exceptions including attitudes to denture‐wearing and to the extraction of teeth. However, variations in such attitudes between those with and those without teeth could not account for the very different dental state of these two groups. This discrepancy between attitude and tooth loss was also apparent for other group comparisons. However, there were marked social group variations in the relationship to the dental care system.In conclusion it is argued that cultural variations in treatment preference, the shaping of professional norms of practice, and the skew in accessibility to services, must account for the pattern of dental care in New Zealand.