Measuring Oral Disease Burden for Planning Services

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DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant): This proposal falls under the rubric of the sixth of the research areas outlined in the 1999 NIDCR Strategic Plan - Behavior, Health Promotion and Environment. It is a proposal that considers issues pertinent to behavioral, social and environmental aspects of oral health. It also explores issues relevant to inequalities in oral health. With the increasing gap (both within and between countries), between rich and poor the need for a robust planning methodology that can be reliably used for the development of oral health plans suitable in a variety of social and economic settings, is paramount. No longer is it reasonable to assume ?one plan fits all?. The approach proposed here to the planning of oral health services will allow the allocation of resources in a fairer and more appropriate fashion and thus, will make a major contribution to addressing inequalities in health. Currently professionals, throughout the world, most commonly base their planning of oral health services on their assessment of normative need. This has resulted in many plans and strategies that either do not fully address peoples identified needs or that are not implemented properly, because of their high costs in human and financial resources. These problems are most severe in disadvantaged communities. This planning proposal sets out to develop a more reliable and realistic method for determining dental care needs and thence to improvements in the method of planning oral health services. It develops the use of a socio-dental approach, to better identify people?s needs. It takes into account the context in which services are to be provided. The key components of the work during the planning phase are to test the understanding and validity of the proposed questionnaire (the socio-dental measurement instrument) and the feasibility of its use, together with a clinical examination, under the field conditions in the four collaborating countries, undertaking pre-tests and pilot studies. The socio-dental instrument proposed for adaptation and testing is the Oral Impacts of Daily Performance measure. The principal investigator is based in Houston, Texas (USA) and the collaborators are based in Cape Town (South Africa), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), and London (UK).