Dental health of recent immigrant children in the Newcomer schools, San Francisco

Dental screenings of 1,012 recent immigrant elementary school children in San Francisco showed 77 per cent of children needed dental treatment on first screening, compared to 25 per cent in the 1979-80 National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR) survey for the western United States. The prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth of the immigrant six and seven year-olds was twice that of their US counterparts. Non-refugee immigrants had more serious dental needs but used dental services less often than children with refugee status.