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Oro-dental status of the 5 to 15 years old school population of Wallis Island (French Territories in the South Pacific) |
Cahiers d'études et de recherches francophones / Santé . Volume 5, Number 1, 55-60, Janvier-Février 1995, Étude originale
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Xavier Hignard, Frédérique Resmond-Richard, Annie Le Berre, Diane Toulemont, Michel Perrin, Jean-Pierre Delattre |
Summary : This study was performed in 1992 with three aims: to assess precisely the prevalence of dental carries in the child population of Wallis Island\; to evaluate the need for dental care\; and create a database allowing the oro-dental status to be followed and the effectiveness of preventive programmes to be assessed. The total population of the Wallis Islands according to the 1990 (the most recent) census was 8,973 living in twenty villages. The population was classified into four ethnic group: Wallisian (94.4%), Futunian (1.2%), European (3.9%) and miscellaneous (0.5%). The lifestyle of the population is traditional and there is virtually no manufacturing, overseas trade or tourism. The population of Wallis Island is young, with 56.6% of the population under 20 years old. Almost all the children attended school from the age of 6 to the age of 19 [3]. Half the Island’s children (n\=1407) between the ages of 5 and 15 years old were classified into 11 age groups and were examined. Children from all schools were included in the study group which was representative of the child population of Wallis Island (94.4% were Wallisian) (table 1). The study was performed according to the 1988 WHO guidelines [4] and Cahen [5]. At age 5, a mean of 3.26 teeth had erupted. The permanent dental set (other than the 3rd molars) were present by age 12 years in virtually all cases. The percentage that had carrie-free permanent teeth were 89.9% at age 5, 59.9% at age 6. 22% at age 12 and only 13.4% at age 15. The mean cod indices at ages 5 and 6 were 7.2 and 6.6 respectively. The DMFT index increased from 0,21 at age 5 to 3.13 at age 12 (table 6). Both the DMFT and DMFS for girls were higher than those for boys, but only significantly so for the ages of 6, 11 and 14 (tables 7 and 9). The data warrants various remarks. First, the onset of carries is early. Among children with a mixed dental set, only 8.3% were fatty carrie-free at the age of 5 and 2.9% at the age of 6. Only 21.3% had managed to avoid tooth decay by the age of 12 (table 3). At age 5, 18.1 % already had carries in permanent teeth, and this figure rose to 40.1% at age 6 (table 3). Secondly, the problem is widespread. Only 13.4% of the sample were free of treated or untreated tooth decay (table 3). Third, tooth disease is increasing, as evidenced by the falling proportion of the population with carrie-free teeth: 81.9% at 5 years old, 33.6% at 9. 22% at 12 and 13.4% at 15. The proportion of teeth treated was low for all age groups (table 6). In metropolitan France, the COD index was 4.24 in 1987 [5], and 2.59 in 1991 [16]. The values for Wallis Island are modest. In 1965, the South Pacific Commission reported the near absence of carries on Wallis Island [18]. The data is not satisfactory for statistical comparison, but it seems that the incidence of dental carries in the Wallis Island population has increased over the last thirty years. |
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