Socio-demographic and area-related factors associated with the prevalence of caries among preschool children in Greece.

OBJECTIVE: To assess dental caries experience in 4-6 year old children of the Athens Metropolitan Area attending public kindergartens and investigate the association of area deprivation and immigration status on dmft.

BASIC RESEARCH DESIGN: A cross-sectional study of a large area-stratified sample of 683 kindergarten children was conducted during the academic years 2009-2011. Dental caries experience and oral hygiene level were assessed using dmft and the Simplified Debris index (DI-s). Area deprivation was defined using a pre-established Geo-demographic System for Attica. Zero-inflated Poisson regression models were used to test associations between the dmft index and related factors; gender, age, immigrant background and area deprivation. Differences were reported in terms of predicted probabilities.

RESULTS: Caries prevalence was 20.8% (95% CI17.8,24.0%). The mean dmft and DI-s scores were 0.67 (95% CI0.61,0.74) and 0.16 (95% CI0.14,0.18) respectively. The mean predicted probability of having no detectable caries experience was 79% (95% CI75, 83%), while the probability of having dmft=1 or 2 was 6% (95% CI5,8%) and 2% (95% CI1,3%) respectively. The predicted probability of having no caries experience was substantially lower for males, those from the least affluent areas and non-Greeks by 5%, 18% and 31% respectively. Regarding dmft scores, deprived children were more likely to have 1 or 2 teeth with caries experience by 9% (95% CI4,13%) and 6% (95% CI2,10%) respectively, while the corresponding differences for non-Greeks were 10% (95% CI7,14%) and 12% (95% CI7,15%).

CONCLUSIONS: Socio-demographic and area-related variations in oral health exist among kindergarten children in Athens.