The impact of a national caries strategy in Greenland 10 years after implementation. A failure or a success?

ABSTRACT

Aims 1) to describe the dental health goals and the single financial goal defined in 2008 with a new national caries strategy in Greenland (CSG) and the progress made during the subsequent 10-year period; 2) to describe the CSG initiatives; and 3) to report caries outcome data for 3-year-old children as well as 9-year-old children in 2012 and 2018; for 6-year-old children as well as 12-year-old children in 2015 and 2018 and for 15-year-old children in 2018, and to compare the data with the baseline data from 2008. Only 6 of the 20 dental health goals were close to being or were achieved over the 10-year period. The total cost of running PDHS-G increased by 4% from 2008 to 2018. The CSG strategy focused on predetermined visits/examinations, risk-related recalls, oral health promotion and predetermined fluoride and sealing policies. The percentage of children with a defs/DMFS = 0 increased by 8–18%, and the mean defs/DMFS decreased by 40–60% between 2008 and 2018 in all five age groups involved. To conclude, the goals defined in 2008 were generally not achieved (failure), but the caries status improved significantly from 2008 to 2018 in all age groups (success).

KEYWORDS:

• Caries experience
• public health
• dental caries

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge all staff members of the Public Dental Health Service in Greenland for their commitment and enthusiastic persistence in the implementation of the Caries Strategy Greenland, CSG.

We also acknowledge the former head of Agency for Health and Prevention, Kalaallit Nunaat, chief dentist Dr Frank Senderowitz who initiated CSG and significantly contributed to the success of the program with his continuing care for the dental health in Greenland. His successors, chief dentist Dr Olina Hansen and chief dentist Lone Mahnfeldt, are acknowledged for their contribution of data concerning staff and economy. Former chief dental officer in Nexö municipality, Denmark, Dr Christian ME Christiansen, and former dentist in Nexö municipality, Dr Jette Christiansen, both associated with the Dental School of Copenhagen, are acknowledged for their significant contribution to CSG, for their great enthusiasm in the ongoing process of optimizing the program in close collaboration with the dental staff, and for their significant contribution at the annual workshops.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.