Oral Health Surveys

"Basic oral health surveys provide a sound basis for assessing the current oral health status of a population and its future needs for oral health care. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a long tradition of epidemiological survey methodology, which includes a description of the diagnostic criteria that can be readily understood and applied in public health programmes worldwide. The WHO manual Oral Health Surveys - Basic Methods has encouraged countries to conduct standardized oral health surveys that are comparable internationally. The WHO Global Oral Health Data Bank collates the data gathered through country surveys on the burden of oral disease and WHO recommended statistical analysis on key indicator age groups of children and adults. This manual aims to encourage national oral health survey planners to standardize measurements of oral diseases and conditions that are important for planning and evaluation of oral health programmes, as well as to ensure the comparability of data collected in a wide range of environments. It does this by applying the WHO global approach to chronic disease surveillance to an operational model for integration of oral health into chronic disease surveillance systems."--Publisher's description.

ABSTRACT: Helping patients achieve an optimal quality of life through patient-centered treatment planning should be the ultimate goal of all oral health care providers. However, this issue extends beyond the realm of the individual clinician's office. This text presents quality-of-life research from various fields, including psychology, public health, and general health care; discusses how a patient-centered approach can be applied to basic oral and craniofacial research, clinical dental practice, community dental health issues, and dental education; and addresses how oral health-related quality of life relates to treating and understanding different patient populations, such as children with special needs, medically compromised patients, patients with oral cancer, and patients with chronic facial pain. Also discussed is how factors such as race/ethnicity, gender, and age can affect oral health-related quality-of-life concerns and treatment strategies. Finally, the book offers an outlook on the role that oral health-related quality of life will play in future research and dental education.