OBJECTIVESAccess to dental healthcare services is a major determinant of dental health in communities. This meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the global prevalence of dental needs and of unmet dental needs in adolescents.METHODSPubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched in June 2018. The summary measures included the prevalence of met and unmet dental needs. A meta-analysis was performed using the inverse variance method to obtain pooled summary measures. Out of 41,661 retrieved articles, 57 were ultimately included.RESULTSThe pooled prevalence of orthodontic treatment needs was 46.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 38.0 to 53.0), that of general treatment needs was 59.0% (95% CI, 42.0 to 75.0), that of periodontal treatment needs was 71.0% (95% CI, 46.0 to 96.0), and that of malocclusion treatment needs was 39.0% (95% CI, 28.0 to 50.0). The pooled prevalence of unmet dental needs was 34.0% (95% CI, 27.0 to 40.0).CONCLUSIONSThe highest and lowest prevalence of unmet dental needs were found in Southeast Asia and Europe, respectively. The prevalence of dental needs was higher in the countries of the Americas and Europe than in other World Health Organization (WHO) regions. The prevalence of unmet dental needs was higher in Southeast Asia and Africa than in other WHO regions.
Background: We aimed to determine the level of health literacy (HL), and its association with general health. In addition, we investigated the direct and indirect association of socioeconomic status (SES) and general health among the adult population in Iran.
Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 750 literate adults' people. The SES was assessed based on the owning of assets. HL was evaluated using a validated questionnaire in Iran. General health was assessed using the WHO general health questionnaire. The simple and adjusted linear regression models, and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for data analysis.
Results: In adjusted model, female gender, higher level of education, use of books, pamphlets, or brochures as a source of health information, the higher level of SES were positively associated with higher HL. In addition, the HL was significantly associated with higher scores of general health. Results of SEM showed that the direct effect of SES on general health was not significant, but the indirect effect via HL was significant (path coefficient: 0.24; p<0.001).
Conclusion: Results of our study indicated HL is strongly associated with general health among the adult population. SES had a significant indirect association with general health via the effect on health literacy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.