A Review of the Trends in Dental Caries of School-Going Children in Amritsar City Over 65 Years and Its Comparison with Other Regions of North India

Abstract

School health program is one of the important components of health-care delivery system which helps in keeping a close watch on oral and physical health of school-going children. It is an admitted fact that children are the future of the nation. If the children are healthy, the nation is bound to be strong. Government of India has emphasized the importance of medical and dental check-ups of primary and secondary school-going children. Keeping in view, the importance of this program, the state of Punjab, in the northern region of India, utilized the existing medical and paramedical facilities of primary health centers, school health clinics, and community health centers with effect from August 1, 1981.[1] Under this program, all school-going children up to secondary classes of government and private governmentaided schools were examined for oral health at least once in the academic year and twice for children going to primary schools. However, the magnitude of handling more than 2,636,285 number of students studying in primary, middle, high school, and higher secondary classes as listed by epunjabschool. gov.in,[2] has caused hurdles in implementation of the school health program scheme. The monitoring, supervision, and implementation in district headquarters and it’s time to time review at state level, however, can only be reflected through the impact of these programs on the oral health status of schoolgoing children and the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) values of those who received the dental education. Although many studies focusing on the impact and effectiveness of school-based dental health education (DHE) programs are conducted in southern part of India, few studies exist relatively in the northern region.[3] Evaluation of oral health program is a powerful tool to identify the groups at high risk for acquiring a disease. This may bring forth the magnitude of the problems existing in these groups which is a basic step to bring a paradigm shift in approach for dental awareness among school-going children, their parents, and schoolteachers. Epidemiological studies reviewing the trends in dental caries from the past 15 years revealed that the prevalence and weighted mean of dental caries for the north region of India is ABSTRACT