Objective: To examine child and parent reports about the child's oral health and assess the associations of these reports with clinical assessments of oral health status by dental examiners. Methods: Surveys with 139 items for children and 133 items for parents were administered by Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview Software. In addition, the Children's Oral Health Status Index (COHSI) was computed from a dental examination. Results: A total of 334 families with children ages 8 to 17 y participated at 12 dental practices in Los Angeles County. Ordinary least squares regression models were estimated separately for child and parent surveys to identify items uniquely associated with the COHSI. Ten of 139 items the children reported regarding their oral health were associated with the COHSI. The strongest associations were found for child's age, aesthetic factors (straight teeth and pleased with teeth), and cognitive factors related to perception of dental appearance (pleased/happy with the look of the child's mouth, teeth, and jaws). Nine of 133 parent items about the child's oral health were associated with the COHSI in the parent model, notably being a single parent, parent's gender, parent born in the United States, pleased or happy with the look of their child's teeth, and accessing the Internet. Conclusion: These child and parent survey items have potential to be used to assess oral health status for groups of children in programs and practices in lieu of dental screenings. Knowledge Translation Statement: The paper's results inform the development of a toolkit that can be used by schools, public health agencies, and dental programs to identify children with low oral health status based on parents' and children's responses to survey items across demographic, physical, mental, and social domains. These survey items can be used to inform parents of the desirability of proactively addressing inadequacies in their child's oral health status, enabling them to more rationally address dental needs.

The main purposes of the study were to assess the accuracy of laboratory testing and the diagnosis by physicians in sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics in Hefei, China. Among 347 men complaining of urethral discharge or dysuria, 240 tested positive at the National Centre for either Neisseria gonorrhoeae or Chlamydia trachomatis, 310 tested positive according to the clinic laboratories, and 347 were diagnosed by the physicians. For chlamydia, the sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) of the clinic laboratories were 55% and 26%, and for the diagnosis by the physicians were 61% and 24%. Laboratory testing and the diagnosis by the physicians had low power to detect mixed infection. The PPVs for the diagnosis by the physicians were 50% for syphilis and 43% for herpes simplex virus (HSV), indicating that both syphilis and HSV were over-diagnosed. Over half of those previously infected had not received education to prevent reinfection. Thus, the quality of clinic laboratory testing was not high and physicians often misdiagnosed STDs.

OBJECTIVES: This study identified age-related differences in diagnosis and progression of HIV by analyzing a nationally representative sample of HIV-infected adults under care in the United States. METHODS: We compared older (> or = 50 years) and younger participants stratified by race/ethnicity. Regression models controlled for demographic, therapeutic, and clinical factors. RESULTS: Older non-Whites more often had HIV diagnosed when they were ill. Older and younger patients were clinically similar. At baseline, however, older non-Whites had fewer symptoms and were less likely to have AIDS, whereas at follow-up they had a trend toward lower survival. CONCLUSIONS: Later HIV diagnosis in non-Whites merits public health attention; clinical progression in this group requires further study.