[School dentistry in Zurich Canton: changes as a result of caries reduction of 80 to 85 percent].

In Switzerland annual examinations of school children in the individual communities and the priority for their conservation treatment have a tradition of more than half a century. Already 40 years ago, the majority of the cantons had passed legislation compelling the communities to organize school dental services. They were not uniformly defined, and the communities had great freedom how to comply with the law, e.g. to contract local dentists for the priority care of children or to build their own school dental clinic. When preventive methods became available, initiated 1953 by daily tablet intake at school, the introduction of preventive activities into the already existing school dental care was comparatively easy. It was mostly welcomed in the face of the very high caries prevalence. Supervised toothbrushing with a fluoride preparation (mostly gels with 1.2% F) 6 times a year has been a standard for many years. It is the cornerstone of the dental health education programs. These cover now approximately 80% of the children up to age 11-12 while for the older schoolchildren, coverage is markedly lower. Caries prevalence has declined by 70-84 percent since the late sixties. The most important factors for decline are listed in Table 1. In Western Germany, pedodontic care was not given priority. At the universities, pedodontics had no recognition as a professional or official branch of dentistry. There were numerous local initiatives to improve pedodontic care. Lack of official support, however, precluded most of these endeavours to gain momentum.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)