OHIP-K showed excellent reliability and validity. OHIP-14S may be a better choice for the evaluation of oral health-related quality of life among the Korean elderly for an international comparison.

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While 6-year-old children who had not ingested fluoridated water showed higher dft in the WF-ceased area than in the non-WF area, 11-year-old children in the WF-ceased area who had ingested fluoridated water for approximately 4 years after birth showed significantly lower DMFT than those in the non-WF area. This suggests that the systemic effect of fluoride intake through water fluoridation could be important for the prevention of dental caries.

Oral healthcare systems (OHCS) are designed to maintain the health and function through Communication (Health promotion and education), Prevention, Assessment and Diagnosis, and Treatment. The complexity of these OHCS functions for the ageing are described utilizing the spectrum of dependency of the Seattle Care Pathway framework. Barriers and disparities which challenge the development of OHCS for the ageing can be universal but often vary between developed and developing countries. Recognizing that oral diseases are largely preventable, strategies to improve OHCS must be targeted locally, nationally, and internationally at oral health policy, education, research, and clinical care.

Introduction:The purpose of this study was to review the change of supplied amount of oral pit and fissure sealing (PFS) in urban and rural areas of South Korea after including PFS into the list of treatments covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI), and to check whether there is a difference in supplied amount in areas where the dental treatment accessibility is different based on the data of the Korean National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES). Methods: The KNHANES data year used for 'before coverage' was 2007, and that of 'after coverage' was 2012. Data analysis was done using STATA software.Results: Areas were classified as urban or rural. Reduction of out-of-pocket expenses, according to the NHI coverage PFS experience of children aged 6-14 years, increased from 28.7% before coverage to 34.9% after coverage. PFS experience of children aged 6-14 years in the urban area was increased from 29.2% before coverage to 35.6% after coverage. The increase in rural areas was from 27.2% before coverage to 31.5% after coverage. Conclusions: Although PFS supplying was increased after inclusion in NHI coverage, it is still insufficient to reduce the decayed, missing, filled teeth index effectively. To reduce inequality, supply of PFS in rural area by community oral health program should be strengthened. And also, waiving out-of-pocket money for PFS in NHI should be considered.

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Objectives: The purposes of this study were to review changes in the amount of pit and fissure sealant (PFS) provided after the inclusion of PFS in treatments covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI) and to assess differences in the supplied amount between geographical areas where accessibility to dental care differs. Methods: The years for comparison were selected based on data availability and the time of inclusion of PFS into NHI coverage. The selected pre-inclusion year was 2008, and the post-inclusion year was 2012. Data regarding the amount of PFS supplied were collected from the oral health program, NHI, and Medical care. To dichotomize areas by high and low dental care accessibility, we standardized the population size, number of dental institutions, and number of dentists in each group. Results: We considered metropolitan areas and Gyeonggi Province as high dental care accessibility areas, while other provinces were considered as low dental care accessibility areas. Regardless of the transforming constant, the amount of PFS supplied increased in high dental care accessibility areas and decreased in low dental care accessibility areas after inclusion of PFS in NHI. Conclusions: To increase the amount of PFS provided in low dental care accessibility areas, promotion of PFS should be strengthened and support from oral health programs should be increased. Additionally, waiving out-of-pocket money for PFS in NHI should be considered to remove barriers of supply.

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