Coronal and root caries in the dentition of adults in the United States, 1988-1991

Dental public health policy planning requires accurate and current information about the extent of caries in the United States population. These data are available from the caries examination from Phase 1 of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which found that 94% of adults in the United States show evidence of past or present coronal caries. Among the dentate, the mean number of decayed and filled coronal surfaces per person was 21.5. Dentate females had a lower number of untreated coronal tooth surfaces with caries (1.5), but a higher mean number of treated and untreated surfaces per person (22.7) than males, with scores of 2.1 and 20.2, respectively. Estimates for race-ethnicity groups were standarized by age and gender to control for population differences among them. Dentate non-Hispanic blacks (11.9) and Mexican-Americans (14.1) had half the number of decayed and filled coronal surfaces as non-Hispanic whites (24.3), but more untreated surfaces (non-Hispanic whites, 1.5; non-Hispanic blacks, 3.4; Mexican-Americans, 2.8). Mexican-Americans were most likely to be dentate, had the highest average number of teeth, and had 25% fewer decayed, missing, and filled coronal surfaces (37.6) than non-Hispanic blacks (49.2) and non-Hispanic whites (51.0). Root caries affected 22.5% of the dentate population. Blacks had the most treated and untreated root surfaces with caries (1.6), close to the value for Mexican-Americans (1.4). The score for non-Hispanic whites was 1.1. Untreated root caries is most common in dentate non-Hispanic blacks (1.5), followed by Mexican-Americans (1.2), with non-Hispanic whites (0.6) having the fewest untreated carious root surfaces. Race-ethnicity groups were disparate with respect to dental caries; effort is needed to treat active caries common in some population subgroups.