THE NEED FOR AND PREVALENCE OF DENTAL SEALANTS IN ACTIVE-DUTY US MILITARY PERSONNEL

This paper explores the need for and the prevalence of dental sealants in active duty U.S. military personnel, The data come from the 1994 T ri-Service Comprehensive Oral Health Survey. Data were collected on 13 ,050 Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy active duty personnel at 26 sites, Women and minorities were oversampled. Both bivariate and lo gistic regression analyses were done on the need for at least one dent al sealant and the prevalence of at least one dental sealant in servic e members. Weighted data (1,669,662) were used for the bivariate analy ses; unweighted data were used for the regressions, Results show that 3.6% of service members need dental sealants and that 6.8% have dental sealants. The need for dental sealants varies across age, rank, and b ranch of service, The prevalence of dental sealants varies across age, race, rank, and branch of service. The cost-effectiveness of dental s ealants in this population should be established.