To: The Washington State House, The Washington State Senate, and Governor Jay Inslee
PUT AN END TO DENTAL DISEASES--PREVENT THEM
ACCESS to CARE==SELF CARE==KNOWING HOW to PREVENT, STOP, AND REVERSE DENTAL DISEASES
Why is this important?
As a dental provider, I know that dental diseases are preventable. As a taxpayer, I don't want to pay for the creation of another dental provider to treat a preventable disease.
Help the public understand that creating a midlevel provider, isn't the same as focusing on putting an end to dental diseases.
We should be working to end dental diseases.
Dental hygienists in schools, (with the goal of ending dental diseases for all children) in areas of LIMITED DENTAL ACCESS could happen now!
Research is available that this type of intervention (done in 1979) ended dental diseases as we know them in schools, in Sweden.
BMC Oral Health
Proceedings Open Access
The Effect of a Needs-Related Caries Preventive Program in
Children and Young Adults – Results after 20 Years
P Axelsson*
Address: Department of Preventive Dentistry, Public Dental Health Service, Karlstad, Sweden
Email: P Axelsson* - [email protected]
* Corresponding author
Abstract
The risk for caries development in children varies significantly for different age groups, individuals,
teeth, and surfaces. Thus from a cost-effectiveness point of view, caries preventive measures must
be integrated and based on predicted risk from age group down to individual tooth surfaces. Based
on this philosophy and experiences from continuously ongoing research on evaluating and
reevaluating separate and integrated caries preventive measures, as well as methods for prediction
of caries risk, a needs-related caries preventive program was introduced for all 0–19-year-olds in
the county of Värmland, Sweden, in 1979. The goals for the subjects following the program from
birth to the age of 19 years were:
1. To have no approximal restorations.
2. To have no occlusal amalgam restorations.
3. To have no approximal loss of periodontal attachment.
4. To motivate and encourage individuals to assume responsibility for their own oral health.
The effect of the program is evaluated once every year on almost 100% of all 3–19-year-olds in a
computer-aided epidemiologic program from 1979. Most of the individualized preventive program
was carried out by dental hygienists or prophy dental assistants at clinics in the elementary schools.
During the 20-year period the percentage of caries-free 3-year-olds increased from 51% to 97%.
In 1999 as many as 86% of the 12-year-olds were caries free. Caries incidence was reduced more
than 90% in all age groups. More than 90% did not develop any new caries lesions in 1999. As a
consequence, caries prevalence was dramatically reduced. In 12- and 19-year-olds, the mean
number of Decayed and Filled Surfaces (DFS) per individual was reduced from 6 to 0.3 and from
23 to 2 respectively. In 19-year-olds the mean number of approximal DFS was <1, and only 0.5 had
to be filled. The mean number of occlusal DFS was <1. Since 1995 we have not been allowed to
use amalgam in 1–19-year-olds in Sweden. As an effect of our high quality plaque program,
approximal attachment loss was prevented, and by efficient education in self-care based on selfdiagnosis,
needs-related self-care habits were established. Thus it can be concluded that nearly
100% of our goals had been achieved.
from Biotechnology and Biomaterials to Reduce the Caries Epidemic
Seattle, USA. 13–15 June 2005
Published: 10 July 2006
BMC Oral Health 2006, 6(Suppl 1):S7 doi:10.1186/1472-6831-6-S1-S7
<p>Biotechnology and Biomaterials to Reduce the Caries Epidemic</p> Rebecca L Slayton, James D Bryers, Peter Milgrom Proceedings http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6831-6-S1-info.pdf
© 2006 Axelsson; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Let's work to end dental diseases in Washington State NOW!
Help the public understand that creating a midlevel provider, isn't the same as focusing on putting an end to dental diseases.
We should be working to end dental diseases.
Dental hygienists in schools, (with the goal of ending dental diseases for all children) in areas of LIMITED DENTAL ACCESS could happen now!
Research is available that this type of intervention (done in 1979) ended dental diseases as we know them in schools, in Sweden.
BMC Oral Health
Proceedings Open Access
The Effect of a Needs-Related Caries Preventive Program in
Children and Young Adults – Results after 20 Years
P Axelsson*
Address: Department of Preventive Dentistry, Public Dental Health Service, Karlstad, Sweden
Email: P Axelsson* - [email protected]
* Corresponding author
Abstract
The risk for caries development in children varies significantly for different age groups, individuals,
teeth, and surfaces. Thus from a cost-effectiveness point of view, caries preventive measures must
be integrated and based on predicted risk from age group down to individual tooth surfaces. Based
on this philosophy and experiences from continuously ongoing research on evaluating and
reevaluating separate and integrated caries preventive measures, as well as methods for prediction
of caries risk, a needs-related caries preventive program was introduced for all 0–19-year-olds in
the county of Värmland, Sweden, in 1979. The goals for the subjects following the program from
birth to the age of 19 years were:
1. To have no approximal restorations.
2. To have no occlusal amalgam restorations.
3. To have no approximal loss of periodontal attachment.
4. To motivate and encourage individuals to assume responsibility for their own oral health.
The effect of the program is evaluated once every year on almost 100% of all 3–19-year-olds in a
computer-aided epidemiologic program from 1979. Most of the individualized preventive program
was carried out by dental hygienists or prophy dental assistants at clinics in the elementary schools.
During the 20-year period the percentage of caries-free 3-year-olds increased from 51% to 97%.
In 1999 as many as 86% of the 12-year-olds were caries free. Caries incidence was reduced more
than 90% in all age groups. More than 90% did not develop any new caries lesions in 1999. As a
consequence, caries prevalence was dramatically reduced. In 12- and 19-year-olds, the mean
number of Decayed and Filled Surfaces (DFS) per individual was reduced from 6 to 0.3 and from
23 to 2 respectively. In 19-year-olds the mean number of approximal DFS was <1, and only 0.5 had
to be filled. The mean number of occlusal DFS was <1. Since 1995 we have not been allowed to
use amalgam in 1–19-year-olds in Sweden. As an effect of our high quality plaque program,
approximal attachment loss was prevented, and by efficient education in self-care based on selfdiagnosis,
needs-related self-care habits were established. Thus it can be concluded that nearly
100% of our goals had been achieved.
from Biotechnology and Biomaterials to Reduce the Caries Epidemic
Seattle, USA. 13–15 June 2005
Published: 10 July 2006
BMC Oral Health 2006, 6(Suppl 1):S7 doi:10.1186/1472-6831-6-S1-S7
<p>Biotechnology and Biomaterials to Reduce the Caries Epidemic</p> Rebecca L Slayton, James D Bryers, Peter Milgrom Proceedings http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6831-6-S1-info.pdf
© 2006 Axelsson; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Let's work to end dental diseases in Washington State NOW!