Frequency distribution of dental caries in Japanese children

Tanaka Koji, Miyake Tatsuro, Kambara Masaki

doi:10.18905/shikaigaku.72.2_94

We surveyed Japanese elementary school children to determine the frequency distribution of their oral health and developed theoretical distributions of caries prevalence for various age groups. We studied 3,222 elementary school children between 1995 and 2007, and used a study of 4,155 people done by the National survey of dental diseases in Japan for 2005. The frequency distribution of dental caries in the first and second grade elementary school children from 1995 to 2007 usually had a Poisson distribution, while the third to sixth grade children for the same period changed from a quasi-normal distribution to a Poisson distribution. Caries prevalence from the National survey of dental disease in Japan for 2005 had a Poisson distribution in 6, 7 and 10 year olds. The frequency distribution for those 11-29 years of age was not defined with a slant to the left, it was similar to the normal distribution for those 30-49 years of age, and it was not defined with a slant to the right for those 50-79 years of age. Calculation of the statistical significance for the decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFTindex) of Japanese elementary school children were different when the Poisson distribution was used compared to use of the t-distribution. We found that the DMFT for Japanese children generally had a Poisson distribution. These results suggest that the Poisson distribution is good for analysis of dental caries prevalence in Japanese children.

Frequency distribution of dental caries in Japanese children

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