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Updated: Nov 18, 2025

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Oral health work process: disparity between teams in Brazil, 2014
Leonardo de Paula Amorim1, Maria Inês Barreiros Senna2, Janice Simpson de Paula1
1Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Odontologia Social e Preventiva, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Objective:
To compare Modality I and Modality II Oral Health Teams (OHT) regarding work process performance and differences between Brazilian regions.
Methods:
This was a cross-sectional study with OHTs that took part in the National Program for Primary Health Care Access and Quality Improvement (2013-2014). Latent Class Analysis identified OHT subgroups according to work process (action planning, health promotion actions and comprehensive health care) performance (consolidated, developing or incipient). OHT modalities were compared, resulting in an Index of Disparity.
Results:
After evaluating 15,886 OHTs, Modality II OHTs were found to have a higher percentage of consolidated work processes in the Southeast (67.8%-94.6%) and Southern (54.8%-93.0%) regions. Disparity in the consolidated work process was greater among Modality II OHTs (6.3-26.5) compared to Modality I OHTs (3.9-18.4).
Conclusion:
Modality II OHTs have the potential for better performance regarding the work process, but with regional disparities.
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