Dental health in suburban Jordanian preschool children

There is no previous report from Jordan on dental health in preschool children. In the present study, carried out from November 1988 to January 1989, 255 Jordanian children aged 6 months to 6 years and living in a suburb of Amman were examined for dental caries and related factors. The disease was clinically visible in the second year of life. In the age group 3-6 years 72% had acquired caries, most of them severe. Boys and girls were affected similarly. The prevalence of caries was independent of social background factors. The reason for the high prevalence was probably early and uncontrolled intake of sweets combined with absence of dental cleaning. The authors pose that dental caries is becoming a major health problem among suburban Jordanian children and propose that this preventable disease should be tackled a the child health centers through teaching programmes directed to parents, commencing when the child is under one year of age.