Recently, being encouraged by “Campaign for reduction of decayed teeth”, it is required to evaluate the status of dental health program in school. Although considerable epidemiological surveys on the dental condition of japanese school children have been taken, the actual status of dental health program in school is not estimated from the surveys of this type.
Therefore, the author would like to propose a new method of quantitative evaluation for the status of dental health program in school, which is refered as “Dental Health Index” (D.H.I.). Author's Dental Health Index is ratio obtained by dividing standardized rate of high grade carious teeth by standardized rate of filled teeth.
In order to estimate the dental condition of school children involving various age groups, it is necessary to standardize the figures using the factor calculated form data of whole community. Because the rate of dental caries incidence seems to alter regardless of endeavor on children's side, the incipient carious teeth are not taken into consideration. For this reason, numbers of untreated carious teeth with high grade carious lesion and numbers of filled teeth are adopted as object of the evaluation for the status of dental health program in school; the numbers of untreated carious teeth with high grade carious lesion are useful as the indicator of negligence for oral hygiene, and the numbers of filled teeth as the indicator of results of dental health education in school.
It is believed that this index excels any other means in evaluating the status of the dental health program in school.
