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. 2010 Feb 18:10:76.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-76.

Children's tooth decay in a public health program to encourage low-income pregnant women to utilize dental care

Peter Milgrom  1 , Marilynn Sutherland, R Mike Shirtcliff, Sharity Ludwig, Darlene Smolen
Affiliations

Children's tooth decay in a public health program to encourage low-income pregnant women to utilize dental care

Peter Milgrom et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: A community-based public health program to provide a dental home for women covered by the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid) in Klamath County, Oregon USA was instituted with the long-term goal to promote preventive oral care for both mothers and their new infants provided by dental managed care companies.

Methods: As part of the evaluation of the program, children in Klamath and comparable non-program counties were examined in their 2nd year of life to begin to determine if benefits accrued to the offspring of the mothers in Klamath County.

Results: Eighty-five and 58.9% of the children were caries free in the Klamath and comparison county samples, respectively (RR = 1.48, 95% CI 1.13, 1.93). The mean (SD) number of teeth with any decay was .75 (2.5) in the test population and 1.6 (2.5) in the comparison population (t = 2.08, p = .04).

Conclusions: The assessment showed that children of mothers in the Klamath County program were about one and a half times more likely to be caries free than children in the comparison counties. Additional controlled studies are being undertaken.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of the number of teeth/child with any decay by group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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