Elsevier

Dental Abstracts

Volume 62, Issue 1, January–February 2017, Pages 19-20
Dental Abstracts

The Big Picture
Prevalence estimates in the US

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.denabs.2016.07.006Get rights and content

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Background

Nearly half of all adults age 30 years or older in the United States are affected by periodontitis. A Healthy People 2020 objective is to reduce the prevalence of moderate and severe periodontitis in US adults. To address the problem it’s important to know where the prevalence is highest and target effective programs for those populations. Currently the state and local levels of periodontitis are not well characterized, yet this is where most of the public health programs are instituted.

Methods

The assessment focused on obtaining an estimate of the prevalence of periodontitis among adults age 30 to 79 years at state, county, congressional district, and census tract levels based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2009-2012, population counts from the 2010 US census, and smoking status estimates from the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The small area estimation (SAE) method used age, race/ethnicity, gender, smoking status, and

Results

The model-based estimates were statistically similar to the NHANES estimates at the national level and within the subgroups of gender, age, race/ethnicity, smoking status, and poverty status. At the state level, the model estimated a low prevalence of 37.7% in Utah up to a high of 52.7% in New Mexico, which represented an estimated 15% disparity among the states.

At the county level, the low was 33.7% and the high was 68%, with a mean of 46.6% and a median of 45.9%. The disparity among states

Discussion

The use of MRP modeling of individual- and community-level data can provide a practical and valid way to predict the prevalence of adult periodontitis at state and local levels in the United States. It also allows the incorporation of individual-level risk factors such as poverty and smoking status to predict population health outcomes.

Clinical Significance

Understanding where periodontitis is most common should help to inform oral health policy decisions and guide the development of

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Eke PI, Zhang X, Lu H, et al: Predicting periodontitis at state and local levels in the United Stsates. J Dent Res 95:515-522, 2016

Reprints available from PI Eke, Div of Population Health, National Ctr for Chronic Disease and Health Promotion, Ctrs for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA 30341; e-mail: [email protected]

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