Golkari, A;
Sabokseir, A;
Sheiham, A;
Watt, RG;
(2016)
Socioeconomic gradients in general and oral health of primary school children in Shiraz, Iran.
F1000Research
, 5
(767)
10.12688/f1000research.8641.1.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Health status is largely determined by socio-economic status. The general health of individuals at higher social hierarchy is better than people in lower levels. Likewise, people with higher socio-economic status have better oral health than lower socio-economic groups. There has not been much work regarding the influence of socio-economic status on the health conditions of children in developing countries, particularly in Iran. The aim of this study was to compare the oral and general health conditions of primary school children of three different socio-economic areas in the city of Shiraz, Iran. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 335, 8- to 11-year-old primary schoolchildren in Shiraz. The children were selected by a three-stage cluster sampling method from three socio-economically different areas. Tools and methods used by the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council were used to obtain anthropometric variables as indicators of general health. The Decay, Missing, Filled Teeth (DMFT) Index for permanent teeth, dmft Index for primary teeth, the Modified Developmental Defects of Enamel (DDE) Index, the Gingival Index (GI) and the Debris Index-Simplified (DI-S) were used for oral health assessment. RESULTS: Height (P<0.001), weight (P<0.001), and BMI (P=0.001) significantly increased as the socio-economic status of area increased. GI score (P<0.001), DI-S score (P<0.001), number of permanent teeth with DDE (P=0.008), and number of DDE lesions in permanent teeth (P=0.008) significantly decreased as the socio-economic status of area increased. DISCUSSION: Findings of this study generally confirmed that social gradients exist in both general and oral health status of the primary schoolchildren of Shiraz. The influence of socio-economic status on health condition means children have different life chances based on their socio-economic conditions. These findings emphasize the significance of interventions for tackling socio-economic inequalities in order to improve the health status of children in lower socio-economic areas.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Socioeconomic gradients in general and oral health of primary school children in Shiraz, Iran |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.12688/f1000research.8641.1 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8641.1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication). See for further information: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Health status disparities, Inequalities, Oral health, Socio-economic factors |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1499961 |
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