CORONAL AND ROOT CARIES IN THE DENTITION OF ADULTS IN THE UNITED-STATES, 1988-1991

Dental public health policy planning requires accurate and current inf ormation about the extent of caries in the United States population. T hese data are available from the caries examination from Phase 1 of th e Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which found that 94% of adults in the United States show evidence of past or prese nt coronal caries. Among the dentate, the mean number of decayed and f illed coronal surfaces per person was 21.5. Dentate females had a lowe r number of untreated coronal tooth surfaces with caries (1.5), but a higher mean number of treated and untreated surfaces per person (22.7) than males, with scores of 2.1 and 20.2, respectively. Estimates for race-ethnicity groups were standardized by age and gender to control f or population differences among them. Dentate non-Hispanic blacks (11. 9) and Mexican-Americans (14.1) had half the number of decayed and fil led coronal surfaces as non-Hispanic whites (24.3), but more untreated surfaces (non-Hispanic whites, 1.5; non-Hispanic blacks, 3.4; Mexican -Americans, 2.8). Mexican-Americans were most likely to be dentate, ha d the highest average number of teeth, and had 25% fewer decayed, miss ing, and filled coronal surfaces (37.6) than non-Hispanic blacks (49.2 ) and non-Hispanic whites (51.0). Root caries affected 22.5% of the de ntate population. Blacks had the most treated and untreated root surfa ces with caries (1.6), dose to the value for Mexican-Americans (1.4). The store for non-Hispanic whites was 1.1. Untreated root caries is mo st common in dentate non-Hispanic blacks (1.5), followed by Mexican-Am ericans (1.2), with non-Hispanic whites (0.6) having the fewest untrea ted carious root surfaces. Race-ethnicity groups were disparate with r espect to dental caries; effort is needed to treat active caries commo n in some population subgroups.