Abstract
The purpose of this survey is to investigate yearly change in oral conditions of new patients at JHCDA member dental clinics (mostly JHCDA certified) where regular checkups are systematized and clinical data is regularly recorded and readily available in digital format. For children and minors, the caries experience of permanent teeth was collected and analyzed while for adults, in addition to caries experience, the number of remaining teeth, periodontal conditions, and smoking background were aggregated and analyzed. This 10th survey on new patients is based on the clinical data of 13,344 new patients (male 5,582, female 7,762) collected at 44 clinics across the country (21 prefectures) from January 1st - December 31st 2014. Those 44 clinics were divided into 3 groups according to the amount of local tax per capita in municipalities where they were located and relevant parameters were compared. Compared by age brackets, those groups showed different tendencies in DMFT in middle school students and older. In the adult population, the lower income population exhibited greater age-related increase of DMFT. Other finding include expansion of the DMFT disparity in the population aged 50years or older - when remaining teeth start to decrease; for remaining teeth of the population aged between 60 and 65years, the lower income group showed greater variability within the group while the juvenile population of the lower income group (aged between 11 and 13years) exhibited smaller variability in DMFT compared to its counterparts in the other two groups.
