Parental Smoking Practices and Caries Experience in Pre–School Children

Abstract

Voluntary and involuntary smoking influence general health. Links between voluntary smoking and oral health are confirmed for periodontal diseases and oral cancer/precancer. Since recent reports have suggested an association between parental smoking and caries experience in young children, this study aimed to explore varying patterns of parental smoking, adjusted for social class, with caries prevalence, using data derived from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (1995). Data analysis was confined to 749 children aged 3.0–4.5 years, to avoid confounding effects of unerupted teeth. Bivariate analysis indicated that the prevalence of maternal rather than paternal smoking was significantly related to caries and substantially attenuated social class differences. The reported number of cigarettes smoked was not important. To compensate for the association between social class and maternal smoking, data were dichotomised by social class (manual/non–manual). With caries prevalence as the dependent variable, logistic regression analysis recorded maternal smoking as a significant independent variable in each case, with odds ratios of 1.55/1.96, respectively. The process was repeated for the combined dataset, using the more extensive (six) social class categories. This further analysis yielded an odds ratio for maternal smoking of 1.54 compared with 1.46 for social class. Nutrition status (as growth parameters) and dietary intake (as household spending on confectionery) were not significant independent variables in these equations. The rationale for these findings is discussed. Further research is required to determine mechanisms underlying these observations. It is concluded that maternal smoking is a significant factor to be considered as an additional risk indicator beyond social class when predicting caries risk in young children.

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El humo del tabaco y su asociación con la caries dental en niños y niñas de 10 a 15 años atendidos en la unidad de odontología del departamento 9 de la Comunidad Valenciana

“…Williams SA encontró en su estudio que tener una madre fumadora estaba asociado a una mayor prevalencia de caries en los niños 3 . En el nuestro, ser madre fumadora se asoció significativamente con mayor preva lencia de caries en dentición temporal, mien tras que ser padre fumador no guardó rela ción significativa con la presencia de caries.…”

Research on Sustainable Development of New Rural Cooperative Medical System: Based on the Perspective of Rural Preventive Health Care Investment

“…This casual contact with children later in the middle ear infection, asthma, wheezing, cough, bronchitis, pneumonia and pulmonary function damage related to [4]. From the British national diet and nutrition survey data show that maternal smoking alone with preschool children dental caries of deciduous teeth growth in general about [5]. It can be seen that the future health cost is huge, which not only make the new rural cooperative medical expenditure, and lead to the decline of the quality of labor and life.…”