Biografia

Ronen Manosov

Toothache More Common Among Minority And Special Needs Children
30 Nov 2010   

Poor, minority and special needs children are more likely to be affected by toothache, accordingto a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. 

"Toothache is a source of chronic and often severe pain that interfereswith a child's ability to play, eat and pay attention in school," the authors write as background information in the study. The authors also note that "the most common cause of toothache is dentaldecay" and the "process of dental decay is one that optimally would be prevented or, at the very least, identified early and then arrested through provision of regular professional dental care. However,for some U.S. children, including those who are Medicaid-insured, access to preventive and restorative dental care is more difficult." 

Charlotte Lewis, M.D., M.P.H., and James Stout, M.D., M.P.H.,both of the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, studied data from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health to determine the prevalence of and risk factors for toothache inchildren. Data were collected from a population-based sample of the parents/guardians of 86,730 children between ages 1 and 17, from 50 states and the District of Columbia. Based on the populationrepresented by the sample, the authors found that approximately 10.7 percent of U.S. children had experienced a toothache in the previous six months. Toothache was most common in children between the ages of 6and 12, with one in seven affected by toothache in the past six months. 

The authors also found that 58 percent of children who had a toothache also reported cavities within the past six months.Additionally, even when controlling for insurance and poverty status, black and multiracial children had significantly higher odds of having experienced a toothache than white children. Poor children...