RESUMO
The dental restorative treatment needs of Mexican-American children, aged 1-17 years, were assessed from the 1982-83 Southwestern US Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HHANES). This report analyzed those needs and applied a dollar cost to them, using 1982 median fees of US general practitioners. The total estimated cost required to meet those needs for the population estimate of 3,396,770 children was $236,856,772 (95% CI: $198,575,174 to $275,138,370). The mean cost per child was $69.73 (SE: 5.75). Although a majority of the children had no unmet need, 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds had extensive needs for crowns, endodontics, and prosthetic replacement of teeth, with accompanying high costs: mean total cost per examinee was $177 (SE: 28.97), $161 (SE: 32.20), and $237 (SE: 33.26), respectively. The treatment needs were compared with the previously published regional data from the 1979-80 NIDR survey, which used the same dental restorative treatment needs (DRTN) index. The findings indicated a great need for dental treatment among Mexican-American children that appeared to exceed that of the general school-aged population. Our analysis, in providing estimates of the cost of needed treatment, might be useful in planning dental treatment programs and in comparing surveys.
Assuntos
Assistência Odontológica/economia , Restauração Dentária Permanente/economia , Custos de Cuidados de Saúde , Necessidades e Demandas de Serviços de Saúde/economia , Americanos Mexicanos , Adolescente , Fatores Etários , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Índice CPO , Assistência Odontológica/estatística & dados numéricos , Restauração Dentária Permanente/estatística & dados numéricos , Necessidades e Demandas de Serviços de Saúde/estatística & dados numéricos , Nível de Saúde , Humanos , Lactente , México/etnologia , Saúde Bucal , Sudoeste dos Estados Unidos/epidemiologia , Dente , Dente DecíduoAssuntos
Atitude Frente a Saúde , Fluoretação , California , Criança , Coleta de Dados , Feminino , Educação em Saúde , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Opinião Pública , Inquéritos e QuestionáriosRESUMO
Dental screenings of 1,012 recent immigrant elementary school children in San Francisco showed 77 per cent of children needed dental treatment on first screening, compared to 25 per cent in the 1979-80 National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR) survey for the western United States. The prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth of the immigrant six and seven year-olds was twice that of their US counterparts. Non-refugee immigrants had more serious dental needs but used dental services less often than children with refugee status.
