Dental caries prevalence and experience in 10-14 years old children in the nenets autonomous area (Arctic russia) in relation to mineral composition of drinking water and socio-demographic factors

Abstract

Aim: to assess the prevalence and experience of caries among 10-14 years old children in the Nenets Autonomous Area (Arctic Russia) in relation to mineral composition of drinking water and socio-demographic factors. Methods. A cross-sectional study. Alto-gether, 308 schoolchildren were examined using standard WHO methodology. Caries experience was presented as a sum of decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT). Samples of drinking water were taken. Caries prevalence and mean DMFT were presented with 95 % confidence intervals (CI). Categorical variables were analyzed using chi-squared tests. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used for numeric data. Spearman’s correlation analysis was used to study associations between mineral components of drinking water and MDFT. Results. The prevalence of caries was 72.4 % (95 % CI: 67.2-77.1) with the mean DMFT of 3.46 (95 % CI: 3.13-3.79) % with no gender difference. On average, there were 1.28 (95 % CI: 1.07-1.49) decayed, 0.05 (95 % CI: 0.02-0.09) missing and 2.13 (95 % CI: 1.84-2.4) % filled teeth. Nenets children living in rural areas had lower DMFT-index compared to children from the boarding school and from urban areas (p < 0.001). Russian children from the boarding school had more decayed (p < 0.001) and missing (p < 0.001) teeth than rural and urban children. Weak inverse association (rs =-0.12; p = 0.031) was observed between nitrite-ion concentration and caries experience. Conclusions. No association was found between the mineral components of the drinking water and DMFT except for the nitrite-ion. Significant geographical variation is caries experience were observed. Moreover, mean values for the components of the DMFT-index varied between ethnicities.