Dental caries is reportedly the most prevalent disease worldwide and represents a significant challenge for public health, especially in childhood, with 7.8% of children suffering from untreated caries in their primary teeth worldwide. The Chilean Government is making efforts to gradually improve oral health across the population, with the incorporation of new public health programmes that aim to improve oral health and reduce oral health inequalities, including a community water fluoridation

more »

... ogramme; oral health preventive interventions in primary care public clinics, and "Sembrando Sonrisas", a daily supervised toothbrushing and fluoride varnish application programme in state-funded nurseries based on the "Childsmile" national child oral health improvement programme for Scotland. In Chile, there are few published studies that determine the burden of caries in children, and thus far, there has been no formal evaluation of the impact of the national oral health improvement programmes for Chile on child caries outcomes. Aim: The overarching aim of this thesis was to undertake a quantitative outcome evaluation of the national oral health improvement programmes for Chile on oral health outcomes and related inequalities in children. This overarching aim was met by fulfilling the following objectives: (1) To collect, collate and manage data from the national oral health programmes, along with data on child dental caries and sociodemographic characteristics at the national, regional, and municipality level in Chile; and to assess quality and completeness across datasets; (2) To design and develop an area-based ecological longitudinal cohort to assess the trends in dental caries of six-years-old children in Chile at the national, regional, and municipality levels, and to analyse related area-based socioeconomic inequalities and the impact of the sociodemographic characteristics of the municipalities on child caries levels; (3) To assess the impact of the national oral health programmes, including: communit [...]