Early Childhood Dental Caries, Mouth Pain, and Malnutrition in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region

Marvin So, Yianni A. Ellenikiotis, Hannah M. Husby, Cecilia Leonor Paz, Brittany Seymour and Karen Sokal-Gutierrez
Additional contact information
Marvin So: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Yianni A. Ellenikiotis: Harvard School of Dental Medicine, 188 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Hannah M. Husby: University of California Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health, 650 Charles E. Young Drive S., Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Cecilia Leonor Paz: Doctor en Odontología General, Quito, Ecuador
Brittany Seymour: Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, 188 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Karen Sokal-Gutierrez: University of California, Berkeley-University of California San Francisco Joint Medical Program, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, 570 University Hall, MC 1190, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: Malnutrition and dental caries in early childhood remain persistent and intertwined global health challenges, particularly for indigenous and geographically-remote populations. To examine the prevalence and associations between early childhood dental caries, parent-reported mouth pain and malnutrition in the Amazonian region of Ecuador, we conducted a cross-sectional study of the oral health and nutrition status of 1407 children from birth through age 6 in the “Alli Kiru” program (2011–2013). We used multivariate regression analysis to examine relationships between severe caries, parent-reported mouth pain measures, and nutritional status. The prevalence of dental caries was 65.4%, with 44.7% of children having deep or severe caries, and 33.8% reporting mouth pain. The number of decayed, missing and filled teeth (dmft) increased dramatically with age. Malnutrition was prevalent, with 35.9% of children stunted, 1.1% wasted, 7.4% underweight, and 6.8% overweight. As mouth pain increased in frequency, odds for severe caries increased. For each unit increase in mouth pain frequency interfering with sleeping, children had increased odds for being underweight (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR): 1.27; 95% CI: 1.02–1.54) and decreased odds for being overweight (AOR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.58–0.97). This relationship was most pronounced among 3–6 year-olds. Early childhood caries, mouth pain and malnutrition were prevalent in this sample of young children. Parent-reported mouth pain was associated with severe caries, and mouth pain interfering with sleeping was predictive of poor nutritional status. We demonstrate the utility of a parsimonious parent-reported measure of mouth pain to predict young children’s risk for severe early childhood caries and malnutrition, which has implications for community health interventions.

Keywords: early childhood caries; mouth pain; malnutrition; Ecuador; community-based intervention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/5/550/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/5/550/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:5:p:550-:d:99326

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().