On oral disease, illness and impairment among 50-year-olds in two Swedish counties

Abstract

There were three general aims of the thesis. To investigate: 1) the fulfillment of the judiciary Swedish goal of good dental care on equal conditions in an adult population born 1942 in two Swedish counties in 1992. Both selfrated oral health and clinical observations indicated good oral health in the study population. Full social equality of dental care was not attained, but the social gradient was modest. 2) To find models for risk prediction on population level for oral health, expressed as number of remaining teeth, as caries and as periodontitis. Relatively efficient such models were constructed, with the lowest efficiency for periodontitis indicators. Oral health and disease were found to be qualitatively different. Still, use of tobacco was a consistent risk factor for both poor health and presence of disease. 3) To investigate if questionnaires can be used to monitor oral health, disease and illness. It was found that this is the case on population level, but also that questionnaire surveys cannot wholly replace clinical studies, especially regarding periodontal disease. For number of remaining teeth and frequency of removable dentures, the questionnaire methodology is appropriate for monitoring in this type of population, which has been utilized by setting the present study as a baseline for ongoing longitudinal studies relying on survey methodology.