Australian dental journal最新文献

A recent Senate Select Committee has tabled its report into the provision of and access to dental care in Australia. The Senate Committee heard:

There were 35 recommendations for reform centred around the need to put the mouth back in the body and covered by five broad themes:

This paper provides an overview of the problem and focuses on the recommended funding reforms necessary to improve access to dental care.

Test your knowledge by first reading the article, then go to www.ada.org.au. Log on to the members site and click on Professional Information. Under Publications, follow the links to this month's Quiz. Select the option that you think provides the best answer to each question. Click ‘Done’ and in an instant you'll know how you scored. Remember to print out a copy of your score for your records. Completion of this quiz entitles you to 1 CPD hour. Please note the Editorial Office does not accept hard copies of completed questionnaires. The Quiz must be completed online and a printed copy of your results retained for CPD audit purposes.

Q1

Correct answer: d

Q2

Correct answer: d

Q3

Correct answer: a

Q4

Correct answer: a

Q5

Correct answer: c

MA Atieh: Concept/design, data collection, data analysis/interpretation, drafting article, critical revision of article and approval of article. M Shah: Data analysis/interpretation, critical revision of article and approval of article. A Hakam: Critical revision of article and approval of article. M Alghafri: Critical revision of article and approval of article. A Tawse-Smith: Critical revision of article and approval of article. NHM Alsabeeha: Critical revision of article and approval of article.

The authors report no conflicts of interest related to this review.

No funding was obtained for this study.

No ethical approval was required for this study.

PROSPERO ID CRD42023430033.

Dental caries constitutes one of the most ubiquitous diseases in Australia, with Indigenous children presenting a notably higher prevalence than their non-Indigenous peers. This literature review aims to update the knowledge base developed by Christian and Blinkhorn in 2012, with a particular focus on the contemporary disparities in dental caries between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. Our research strategy involved a thorough exploration of the Medline, PubMed, and Scopus databases to identify pertinent studies published between 2009 and 2022. Supplementary resources included various government websites and citation searches. We prioritised studies that focused on children aged 5–6 or 12 years—reflecting the World Health Organization's index ages for oral health—and that reported dental caries prevalence and experience indicators. Our review methodology was guided by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement. The updated search, spanning 2009 to 2023, retrieved studies that reported caries estimates exclusively from 2009 to 2014. Within this period, the prevalence of dental caries in Indigenous children's primary teeth ranged between 52% and 77%, while the prevalence in permanent teeth varied from 36% to 60%. This updated review indicated that Indigenous children continue to experience caries at an approximately twice higher rate than non-Indigenous children, sustaining the persisting disparity in caries estimates. The findings from this review show that no discernible improvement in dental caries rates among Australian Indigenous children has been observed in comparison to the previous review; and that Indigenous children continue to experience both higher prevalence and severity of dental caries compared to non-Indigenous children.