Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an incremental oral health program by school dental clinic which had been initiated by the community health center of Changwoncity, Korea for six years from 1999 to 2004. Methods: Dental surveys were carried out on six to eleven year old children who had benefited from the incremental oral health program begun in 1999 and also on a control group from the other elementary school children in Changwon-city, who were estimated to be similar to socio-economical factors on dental caries prevalence. The number of the subjects is 998 children in the participant group and 3,274 children in the control group. The obtained data from these surveys were analyzed with the SPSS statistical package. Results: The DMF rates are 6.5% at aged 6 years and 40.1% at aged 11 years of children benefited from the program, respectively. The DMF rates of children benefited from the program are lower than the children of control group at the ages from eight to eleven years. The mean DMFT scores are 0.09 at aged 6 years and 0.88 at aged 11 years of children benefited from the program, respectively. The mean DMFT scores of children benefited from the program are lower than the children of control group at the ages from nine to eleven years. By the differentials of the mean DMFT scores between the program and control groups, the caries reduction rates of the program have been estimated as 28.6%, 47.7%, 44.7% and 52.9% at the ages of eight, nine, ten and eleven years respectively. Conclusions: These results support that a significant reduction in dental caries can be result from the an incremental oral health program by school dental clinic which is initiated by the community health center.