Dental health status of third grade children and their families within the context of a community's dental health care system

Abstract

Utilizing structure, process, and outcomes as conceptual dimensions of appraisal of quality, data were analyzed to present an evaluation of the quality of a community's dental health care system as reflected in a population subgroups' dental health status. Data were collected from 838 Caucasian third-graders and their parents through interviews, mail questionnaires, and dental screening examinations. Indicators of structure were: status of community water fluoridation in the study community, dentist to population ratio, and dental care resources in the public sector available to eligible residents. Process indicators of quality were: 1) screening, case finding, examinations, and quality of restorations as measures of provider behaviors, and 2) complaints, compliance, conditioned behaviors, level of dental health knowledge, and utilization of dental services as measures of client behaviors. Outcomes, subjected to analysis included indices indicative of dental disease experience. Variables operationally defined as indicators of the subgroup's dental health status were subjected to a descriptive analysis and were then crosstabulated with the socioeconomic status of the child's family to identify socioeconomic differences in the process of obtaining care and in dental health outcomes. Findings indicate which elements in a community's prevailing dental health care system function well and which would need alteration to maximize dental health for the subgroup.