tooth showing a variety of carious
lesions ranging from white spot enamel
caries to cavitated dentine caries.6.2 THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF DENTAL CARIES
Dental caries is one of our most prevalent diseases and yet there is considerable
variation in its occurrence between countries, regions within countries, areas within
regions, and social and ethnic groups. One of the tasks of epidemiology is to record
the level of disease and the variation between groups. A second task is to record
changes in the levels of dental caries in populations over time, while a third task is to
try to explain these variations.
The United Kingdom has one of the best series of national statistics on dental caries.
The dental health of adults and children has been recorded every 10 years, beginning
with the Adult Dental Health Survey of 1968 (227HTable 6.2).
The advantages of this series of surveys are:
- They are national, using sound sampling methods to obtain representative samples
of the populations. - They include both clinical and sociological data, giving the interaction between
knowledge, attitude, behaviour, and disease. - The methods are well described and carefully standardized, resulting in meaningful
longitudinal information.
Data on children at the ages of 5, 12, and 14 are also available through the annual