A comparison of Nantucket children's level of oral health with parental dental behavior and the accessibility to dental care

PLEASE NOTE: This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community: please click Download and log in with a valid BU account to access. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact open-help@bu.edu.Thesis (M.Sc.)--Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry, 1978 (Dental Public Health).Includes bibliographical references (leaves 24-25).Many surveys have been conducted to assess the level of dental health of children in communities located throughout the United States. Some of the better known studies showing the prevalence of dental caries in children in various Massachusetts communities include the reports by Wellock done in the 1940's and 1950’s and Allukian done in the 1960's and 1970's. No published statistics are available concerning the prevalence of dental caries in children living on an island along the New Enqland coast. In November of 1965, Nash and Fishman studied an isolated rural community in Appalachia to promote and raise the level of dental health. Certainly the island of Nantucket is isolated and some of the areas on the island are rural. However, the vast difference in socioeconomic levels of a chronically depressed, rural Appalachian county that has experienced very little economic development and a prosperous resort island makes these two areas dissimilar in terms of an epidemiological comparison. Chung has conducted several investiaations in the 1960's and 1970’s involving Hawaiian schooI children in which he examined their racial ancestry, diet, and prevalence of dental disease. The vast cultural difference between the islands of Hawaii and Nantucket makes it unreasonab|e to compare the levels of dental health of the children on each island. Because of their uniqueness, the New England coastal islands represent a frontier for investigating the level of dental health and attitudes about dental health and dental health care