Socio-Economic Determinants of Children`s Dental Health. Literature Review

Abstract

The purpose of the work was to study the world literature on the socio-economic determinants of dental health among children. Materials and methods. An online information search was performed in the databases “PubMed”, “SciELO”, “Medcape” and “Science of Ukraine: access to knowledge” using the keywords “children caries”, “dental (oral) health”, “children and adolescents”, “social and economic determinants of health” with appropriate translations in foreign languages. Results and discussion. At the global level, dental diseases lead to serious medical and economic consequences which manifest themselves in the form of a significant decrease in the quality of life. The foundations of the dental health level are laid in childhood and are strengthened in adolescence, so these age groups of the population are the main “target audience” for disease prevention measures, valeological research, sanitary and educational work and the formation of appropriate habits. Socio-economic determinants of dental health in children, adolescents and adults on a global scale have been studied unevenly. Mostly, the results of research performed in the developed countries of the world are available. Such a situation creates a need for rethinking approaches and methods for assessing the problem of health care systems in separate countries and changing the methods for developing measures to influence the dental health of children and adolescents with high individualization and adaptation of socially oriented program products in health care. Giving a priority in the development of preventive programs in the field of health care to only individual and collective training measures and communal prevention does not allow to neutralize the negative impact of socio-economic conditions, and even more – it deepens inequality in dental health in the population, which is recognized as a problem by the World Health Organization. With regard to Ukraine, the presence of martial law and the continuation of fighting in certain countries have caused a number of demographic and socio-economic processes, which will be measured and evaluated after some time. But, unequivocally, the existing economic crisis, a decrease in the level of income of the population, negative demographic processes, complications of work in the health care system and other factors that can be defined as determinants of children's dental health continue to operate. Therefore, it is expected that we should be prepared for the deterioration of dental health indicators at the national level and the negative consequences of this. Conclusion. The main socio-economic determinants of children's dental health are recognized as: the level of economic development of the country, access to medical and dental care, the level of family wealth, the age and level of education of parents, their employment, the number of children in the family, the migration status of the family and separately – parents, local peculiarities of the culture of oral cavity care and nutrition, availability and level of coverage of educational and sanitary-educational measures, local levels of development of the system of health care institutions, effectiveness of interaction between health care institutions, education and social protection management bodies