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Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities

BACKGROUND: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a marker of social inequalities worldwide because disadvantaged children are more likely to develop caries than their peers. This study aimed to define the ECC prevalence among children living in French-speaking Switzerland, where data on this topic were s...

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Autores principales: Baggio, Stéphanie, Abarca, Marcelo, Bodenmann, Patrick, Gehri, Mario, Madrid, Carlos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4511018/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26198542
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12903-015-0066-y
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author Baggio, Stéphanie
Abarca, Marcelo
Bodenmann, Patrick
Gehri, Mario
Madrid, Carlos
author_facet Baggio, Stéphanie
Abarca, Marcelo
Bodenmann, Patrick
Gehri, Mario
Madrid, Carlos
author_sort Baggio, Stéphanie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a marker of social inequalities worldwide because disadvantaged children are more likely to develop caries than their peers. This study aimed to define the ECC prevalence among children living in French-speaking Switzerland, where data on this topic were scarce, and to assess whether ECC was an early marker of social inequalities in this country. METHODS: The study took place between 2010 and 2012 in the primary care facility of Lausanne Children’s Hospital. We clinically screened 856 children from 36 to 71 months old for ECC, and their caregivers (parents or legal guardians) filled in a questionnaire including items on socioeconomic background (education, occupation, income, literacy and immigration status), dental care and dietary habits. Prevalence rates, prevalence ratios and logistic regressions were calculated. RESULTS: The overall ECC prevalence was 24.8 %. ECC was less frequent among children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds than children from lower ones (prevalence ratios ≤ 0.58). CONCLUSIONS: This study reported a worrying prevalence rate of ECC among children from 36 to 71 months old, living in French-speaking Switzerland. ECC appears to be a good marker of social inequalities as disadvantaged children, whether from Swiss or immigrant backgrounds, were more likely to have caries than their less disadvantaged peers. Specific preventive interventions regarding ECC are needed for all disadvantaged children, whether immigrants or Swiss.
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spelling pubmed-45110182015-07-23 Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities Baggio, Stéphanie Abarca, Marcelo Bodenmann, Patrick Gehri, Mario Madrid, Carlos BMC Oral Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a marker of social inequalities worldwide because disadvantaged children are more likely to develop caries than their peers. This study aimed to define the ECC prevalence among children living in French-speaking Switzerland, where data on this topic were scarce, and to assess whether ECC was an early marker of social inequalities in this country. METHODS: The study took place between 2010 and 2012 in the primary care facility of Lausanne Children’s Hospital. We clinically screened 856 children from 36 to 71 months old for ECC, and their caregivers (parents or legal guardians) filled in a questionnaire including items on socioeconomic background (education, occupation, income, literacy and immigration status), dental care and dietary habits. Prevalence rates, prevalence ratios and logistic regressions were calculated. RESULTS: The overall ECC prevalence was 24.8 %. ECC was less frequent among children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds than children from lower ones (prevalence ratios ≤ 0.58). CONCLUSIONS: This study reported a worrying prevalence rate of ECC among children from 36 to 71 months old, living in French-speaking Switzerland. ECC appears to be a good marker of social inequalities as disadvantaged children, whether from Swiss or immigrant backgrounds, were more likely to have caries than their less disadvantaged peers. Specific preventive interventions regarding ECC are needed for all disadvantaged children, whether immigrants or Swiss. BioMed Central 2015-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4511018/ /pubmed/26198542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12903-015-0066-y Text en © Baggio et al. 2015 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Baggio, Stéphanie
Abarca, Marcelo
Bodenmann, Patrick
Gehri, Mario
Madrid, Carlos
Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
title Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
title_full Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
title_fullStr Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
title_full_unstemmed Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
title_short Early childhood caries in Switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
title_sort early childhood caries in switzerland: a marker of social inequalities
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4511018/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26198542
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12903-015-0066-y
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