STUDY ON DENTAL HYGIENE SITUATIONS IN INDUSTRY

抄録

Branch of dentistry in the field of industrial hygiene, which had been sadly neglected in Japan for a long time, has recently come to be taken up with due attention. Relationship between dentistry and industrial hygiene on the whole may be placed in the following two classes:
1) Relationship of two major dental diseases (dental caries and alveolar pyorrhea) among the industrial workers.
2) Other dental diseases which are caused by the nature of occupations in which they are engaged, i.e., occupational diseases.
Problems under 1) are to be met with in any kind of industry. The susceptibility percentage of dental caries and alveolar pyorrhea among the Japa nese is quite high, running anywhere from 80 to 90%. This high percentage can be regarded as directly reflective of that of the industrial workers. Of 119, 031, 000 medical cases among the industrial workers reported in the year of 1957, 16, 853, 095 have been the dental cases (14.2%). When calculated in terms of money, expenses for the whole medical cases were 407, 694, 444 dollars and 26, 486, 944 dollars out of it were spent on the treatment connected with dental cases. On the supposition that half an hour has been spent on the treatment of one dental case, the total figures will be 40, 399, 796 hours (4, 611 years, 309 days and 20 hours). Therefore, problems of dental hygiene among the industrial workers are such as to be handled with utmost attention from the viewpoint of expenses and time involved. Although the percentages of these dental cases in Asian countries are not so high as that of Japan, there is reported a warning that these figures are on the increase year after year. In view of this fact, it is absolutely necessary that some sound measures should be established to tackle the dental problems at this stage.