Prevalence of Dental Disease and Risk to Oral Health in Oke-Ogun Rural Communities

The importance of oral health and the general health of an individual are in-terwoven such that if the oral health is poor, the general health would also be poor. There has been an increase in the interest of researchers in the state of the oral health because of the deleterious effects a poor oral health can have on the general health. While the prevalence of oral diseases has been reported to be on the increase worldwide, this paper presents a report on the prevalence of oral diseases in 10 rural communities known as Oke-ogun communities in Oyo State of Nigeria. Cleft and Facial Deformity Foundation (CFDF), an indigenous non-governmental organization (NGO) organized an outreach program, with permission from the State Health Ministry, to examine, diagnose dental diseases, and carry out free surgeries for patients in the visited communities. The program was for two weeks and was divided in phases with the first phase done in May 2019 and second phase in September 2019. Among 1396 respondents, 43.6% complained of toothaches with more female than male presenting with that complain. Also, 511 (36.6%) were reported to have gingivitis and 51 (3.7%) had dental caries. Furthermore, gingivitis and chronic periodontitis were more common in males 776 (55.6%) than females 620 (44.4%) and this was statistically significant at ≤0.002. Periodontal disease was found to be more prevalent in Oke-ogun communities in Oyo state, and this called for urgent intervention strategies by the federal government of Nigeria, non-governmental organizations (NGO) and the international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) since the poor oral health would eventually translate to poor general health.