Study highlights the burden of oral diseases in emerging countries

Jiachen Lin, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Mass., USA., presented the poster "Burden of Oral Diseases in Emerging Countries: A Prediction Model" at the virtual 99th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), held in conjunction with the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the 45th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR), on July 21-24, 2021.

The goal of this study was to investigate the burden of oral diseases and predict trends by 2025 in the U.S. and emerging countries. Global Burden of Disease data from 1990-2017 was used to analyze the prevalence and disability-adjusted life years of oral diseases across the U.S., Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey by gender and age groups (<5, 5-14, 15-49, 50-69, 70+ years) and to forecast 2018-25.

In the prediction model, females and older adults had a higher burden of oral diseases. Notably, Nigeria was expected to continue with the lowest estimated oral diseases burden compared to the other countries. Although the U.S. had a relatively lower oral diseases burden than emerging countries, forecasts suggest a large increase of disability-adjusted life years attributed to oral diseases across all age groups.

These results provide insightful information for policymakers to identify effective oral health strategies and allocation of resources to decrease the burden of oral diseases among populations with purported higher and increasing burden of oral diseases in the next five years.