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Can the development of new dental caries in Danish schoolchildren be predicted from surveillance data in the School Dental Service?

Jeppesen BA, Foldspang A

Master of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark. berit.jeppesen@stofanet.dk

BACKGROUND: Dental screening programmes for Danish children generally target all children, irrespective of their individual caries risk. The standard screening interval is approximately 12 months. A valid systematic screening tool based on routine information sources is however indispensable, if more selective screening strategies should be developed to target the children at highest risk. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the precision with which Danish schoolchildren at high risk for developing dental caries within 1 year can be identified based on information from routine registers. METHODS: Based on data from the Danish National Board of Health's Recording System for the Danish Child Dental Services and from the Central Office of Civil Registration, 3705 schoolchildren aged 7-12 years were followed through 1994-1996. Dental health information as of 1994 and changes 1994-1995 were applied in multiple logistic regressions together with social data as of 1995 to estimate the individual 1-year (1995-1996) risk of developing caries. RESULTS: In 1995, 37.4% of the children had a DMFS index above 0, and during the following year 21.8% of all children developed new caries. The individual child's 1-year caries risk could be estimated relatively accurately at baseline as indicated by the area (76%) under the receiver operating characteristic curve. About 40% of children with an estimated risk of 20% and above developed new caries, whereas 90% of the rest of the children did not do so. CONCLUSION: Based on information from Danish routine registers children at low caries risk may be identified relatively precisely. This may form the basis for the continuous development and targeting of high-risk strategies, in which the screening for caries among children of estimated low risk may be postponed at least 1 year.

Published 5 May 2006 in Community Dent Oral Epidemiol, 34(3): 205-12.
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