School for Dental Therapists, Maharagama, Sri Lanka.
Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 2011 Aug;39(4):345-51. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0528.2010.00606.x. Epub 2011 Jan 17.
To determine income inequalities in both perceived oral health and oral health-related behaviours and the role oral health-related behaviours in explaining income inequalities in perceived oral health among Sri Lankan adolescents.
The sample included 1,218 fifteen-year-olds selected from 48 schools in the Colombo district using a stratified cluster sampling technique. Data were collected by means of questionnaires to both adolescents and their parents. Perceived oral health status was the oral health outcome considered while oral health-related behaviours included brushing frequency, use of dental services in the preceding year and consumption of sugary food/drinks and fruit/vegetables.
Tooth brushing frequency, use of dental services in the preceding year and consumption of fruit/vegetables were associated with perceived oral health status. Also, the trends in perceived oral health and all oral health behaviours across ordered income groups were statistically significant. However, it was evident from the Poisson regression models that the effect of income on perceived oral health did not attenuate significantly following adjustment for oral health behaviours.
This study demonstrated that oral health behaviours were associated with perceived oral health and also the existence of income gradients in perceived oral health and oral health behaviours. However, oral health behaviours were not accountable for the observed income gradients in perceived oral health.
确定斯里兰卡青少年感知口腔健康和口腔健康相关行为方面的收入不平等情况，以及口腔健康相关行为在解释感知口腔健康方面的收入不平等中所起的作用。
该样本包括来自科伦坡地区 48 所学校的 1218 名 15 岁青少年，采用分层聚类抽样技术进行选择。通过问卷收集青少年及其父母的数据。感知口腔健康状况是考虑的口腔健康结果，而口腔健康相关行为包括刷牙频率、前一年使用牙科服务的情况以及含糖食物/饮料和水果/蔬菜的消费情况。
刷牙频率、前一年使用牙科服务的情况以及水果/蔬菜的消费与感知口腔健康状况相关。此外，在有序收入组中，感知口腔健康和所有口腔健康行为的趋势具有统计学意义。然而，泊松回归模型表明，在调整口腔健康行为后，收入对感知口腔健康的影响并没有明显减弱。
本研究表明，口腔健康行为与感知口腔健康相关，并且在感知口腔健康和口腔健康行为方面存在收入梯度。然而，口腔健康行为并不能解释感知口腔健康方面观察到的收入梯度。
