Brief communication: discrimination between European-American and African-American children based on deciduous dental metrics and morphology

Abstract

This study employs metric and morphological features of the deciduous dentition for discriminating between European-American and African-American children and providing allocation rules (regression equations). Five logistic regression equations are presented, with the percentage of correct allocation to group of between 90.1-92.6%. All five equations employ three metric traits (the mesiodistal diameters of the mandibular deciduous canines and anterior and posterior deciduous premolars) and one morphological feature (cusp number of the maxillary deciduous anterior premolar). In addition to these four variables, only two or three additional morphological features are added in carious combinations in the final equations. Correct allocation to group is 4-12% greater when combining metric and morphological features compared to using the features separately.