Early Childhood Caries: A Multi-Factorial Disease

In this paper, the authors review the literature on early childhood caries (ECC) and suggest that it has become a public health problem because of its relatively high and apparently growing prevalence and its rapid progression, which may lead to the destruction of the deciduous dentition. The paper reviews and discusses the definition of early childhood caries and its diagnostic criteria. It then reviews the literature on the causes and determinants of social and economic factors as risk factors for early childhood caries. It concludes that: early childhood caries may be a growing problem in many countries; risk factors for early childhood caries include a number of social and behavioural determinants; there is still insufficient scientific evidence to weight their contribution to the problem; the complicated mixture of many determinants and risk factors for early childhood caries needs further research to obtain reliable information for explanatory models that will identify at-risk infants.