Prevalence and risk factors of dental fluorosis among children aged 8–12 years in Shandong province of China

ABSTRACT

This study was to investigate the prevalence and severity of children’s dental fluorosis (DF) in Shandong and identified the potential risk factors for DF. A total of 87 villages in Shandong were investigated to calculate the prevalence of DF and Community Fluorosis Index (CFI) in 2018–2019. Six hundred and seventy children were enrolled to identify the potential risk factors using univariate and multivariate logistic regressions. Goodman–Kruskal Gamma was used to explore the factors related to the severity of DF. In 87 villages, 1249 of 8700 (14.36%) children still have DF. The prevalence of DF in most villages was below 40% in 2018–2019. Water fluorine concentration when selected for the study and urinary fluorine concentration were related to the risk of DF (P < 0.001). Some eating habits, like lower frequency of eating fresh vegetables, eggs, and beans, were associated with the risk of DF (P < 0.001). The high water fluorine concentration, and lower frequency of eating fresh vegetables, eggs, and beans were also related to the severity of DF (P < 0.001). DF in children in Shandong province is still a common endemic disease. This study tries to provide a useful guide for the prevention and control of DF.

KEYWORDS:

• Dental fluorosis
• risk factors
• community fluorosis index
• fluoride
• fluorosis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The datasets analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy protection but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable requests.

Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Shandong Institute of Prevention and Control for Endemic Disease.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2023.2247364

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Health Science and Technology Development Program of Shandong Province [grant number 2014WS0390]. All authors contributed substantially to this study.