Collecting state-level oral health data when resources are limited: an approach to oral health surveillance.

Many states and localities do not have the resources to conduct oral health surveys of their whole populations, but the demands for data collection continue to increase for both program administration and for Maternal and Child Health Block Grant funding. As one response to this problem, the Oral Health Program of the Michigan Department of Public Health developed an oral health surveillance system as a low-cost method of collecting usable data from the service populations of local health agencies providing direct patient care in Michigan. A record form, to be completed by dentists or hygienists in those agencies at initial or recall examinations, was developed and pilot-tested for all patients of target age groups who presented over a specified four-week period. This paper gives the results from 19 agencies that participated in the pilot test in Michigan. Results showed that 40.5 percent of 2-5-year-olds (n = 341) had some caries experience, their d/dft was 78.2 percent, and mean dft was 4.8 (SD +/- 3.5). Among the 6-19-year-olds (n = 710), 61.4 percent had experienced caries, the D/DFT was 41.8 percent, and the mean DFT was 4.2 (SD +/- 3.2). Among the adults examined, 45.1 percent of 20-64-year-olds (n = 820) and 38.1 percent of those 65 years or older (n = 105) had two or more teeth with untreated decay. These data suggest a high level of untreated disease among the service populations of the local dental health agencies.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)