35
Volume3 Issue6
|
S
upporting
Y
our
P
ractice
The following is based on a research article originally published
in the “AppliedResearch” section of
JCDA.ca
—CDA’s online,
open access scholarly publication that features articles indexed in
Medline, Journal CitationReports and ScienceCitation Index.
ResearchSummary
MoreOnline
OralHealth Status of Immigrant and
RefugeeChildren inNorthAmerica
A ScopingReview
Dental caries isamajor children’soral healthconcern inCanada: among6–19-year olds, the
prevalence isapproximately60%and themeannumber of affected teeth is2.5.
1,2
Inparticular,
disadvantagedchildren, suchasmost refugeeand immigrant (“newcomer”) children, appear
tobeathigher risk for dental diseases.
5
InCanada, immigrants represent 20.6% (6,775,800) of
the total population.
6
Theaimof this scoping reviewwas toassess theoral health statusof the
childrenof refugeesand immigrants; thebarriers toappropriateoral healthcareanduseof
dental services; andclinical andbehavioural interventions for thispopulation inNorthAmerica.
Promoting theoral health statusof newcomer children inNorthAmerica requires timely
knowledgeabout theunderlying factors affecting their access tooral healthcare. This
scoping reviewof selected studiesonnewcomer children in theUnitedStates andCanada
specificallyaddresses the following researchquestions:
❚
What is theoralhealthstatusofchildrenofnewcomers?
❚
Whatarepotentialbarriers to theiruseofdental services?
❚
What interventionshavebeendevelopedand implemented to improve their
oralhealth?
Results
SearchResults
Several stagesof screening reduced thenumber of articles thatmet our criteria to32 studies
publishedbetween1996and2014.
3-5,8,12-39
OralHealthStatus ofChildren ofNewcomers
Childrenof newcomer families tend toexhibit poorer oral healthcomparedwith their
non-newcomer counterparts, especially thosewhose families speak languagesother than
Englishat home.
5,25,26,29,37
Whencomparedwithchildrenof Canadian-bornparents, children
of newcomerspresentedhighermeandecayed/extracted/filledprimary teeth (DEFT)
scores (3.05vs. 1.83,
p
<0.05) andmeandecayed/missing/filledpermanent teeth (DMFT)
scores (0.73vs. 0.42,
p
<0.05).
37
Similarly, in theUnitedStates, comparedwithchildrenof
US-bornparents, childrenof immigrantshada significantly larger number of carious surfaces
(11.5vs. 9.4,
p
=0.01)
5
and twice theprevalenceof earlychildhoodcaries (odds ratio2.06;
95%confidence interval 1.47–2.88).
4
The situationwas evenworseamong refugeechildren,
whoexhibitedagreater number of untreatedcaries (up toabout 75%).
14,16,20,26,32
MonaReza
BSc
MaryamS.Amin
DMD,MSc,PhD
AdamSgro
AnghamAbdelaziz
DDS
Dick Ito
DDS,MSc,FRCD(C)
PatriciaMain
DDS,MSc
AmirAzarpazhooh
DDS,MSc,PhD,FRCD(C)
amir.azarpazhooh@
dentistry.utoronto.ca
Full articleand
references availableat
