Dental Caries in New Zealand and the United States

Abstract

Data on the dental caries experience (DMF) of New Zealand school children ages 12 to 14 collected by the author in 1950 are compared with like data published for 7 areas in the U.S.A. Comparisons are made of the dental caries attack rate of each area and also the percentage composition of the attack rate. The avg. number of attacked permanent teeth per child varies from 4.7 to 9.3 for the 8 areas, with New Zealand ranking 3d. The proportion of filled teeth in the total number of attacked teeth varies from 1/4 to 1/2 in the 7 U. S. areas, with the proportion of D (untreated teeth) ranging from 40 to ,64%. The New'' Zealand data show 86% of the DMF in F and only 10% in D. The tooth mortality rate (M or missing) is lowest in New Zealand. The nearest percentage of missing teeth in the American areas is almost twice as high, and one of these areas shows a percentage nearly 5 times higher.