The burden of the main oral diseases in children as an urgent challenge for public health

Abstract

Purpose is to evaluate the indicators of incidence, prevalence and burden of caries in the children's population of Ukraine in comparison with other countries of the world and taking into account the influence of leading socio-economic factors to determine existing trends and directions for strengthening dental public health. Materials and methods. Materials were obtained using the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (GBD 2019) query tool. Averaged global indicators and indicators for Eastern and Western Europe were used for comparative analysis. The analysis was carried out by gender and in 4 age groups with an interval of 5 years: up to 5 years; 5-9, 10-14 and 15–19 years. Cross-country comparisons with potential confounding factors were made using data from the WHO Global Health Observatory. The software product STATISTICA 6.1 was used for statistical analysis, which included the application of classical methods of parametric and non-parametric statistics. Results. The indicators of the main diseases of the oral cavity in children do not statistically significantly differ from those in Eastern Europe, however, compared to Western Europe, a significantly higher incidence rate (by 64.5%, p<0.05) and prevalence (by 48.9%, p>0.05) caries of temporary teeth. Deciduous dental caries also has a significant global disease burden – 8.57 DALYs per 100,000 population under 20 years of age, which exceeds global and Western European levels. The prevalence and incidence of caries of permanent teeth in Ukrainian children does not differ significantly from the corresponding indicators in Western Europe. Conclusions. The lack of fundamental changes in the state of oral health of children of Ukraine indicates the need to develop more effective measures to preserve dental public health.