Dental caries and treatment experience of adults from minority ethnic communities living in the South Thames Region, UK

Objective To describe the dental caries and treatment experience of groups of adults from minority ethnic communities living in the South Thames Regio n of England. Design Cross-sectional clinical study. Settings Community, re ligious and educational centres for adults from minority ethnic communities . Participants Snowball sample of 928 adults from 44 ethnic groups includin g: Black Caribbean (141); Black African (134); Pakistani (123); Indian (190 ); Bangladeshi (78); Chinese/Vietnamese (143) and 119 from other groups. Re sults More participants were dentate or had 18 or more sound and untreated teeth than adults living in the same area (Todd and Lader, 1991). Duration of residence in the United Kingdom predicted caries or treatment experience in the sample as a whole and in Chinese/Vietnamese people. Increased DMFT was predicted by age and by history of visiting a UK dentist in the sample as a whole and in the Black African group. Conclusions Effect of duration o f UK residence on presence and extent of caries suggests that oral health m ay be better among adults from these ethnic minority groups than among the general population. However, the differences can also be attributed to samp ling bias and old comparison data. Better sampling strategies are required For research of this type.