The dental health of Indo‐Chinese and Australian‐born adolescents

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Abstract
Since 1975, more than 100,000 Indo-Chinese refugees from Vietnam, Kampuchea, and Laos have been resettled in Australia. This dental survey was undertaken to compare the dental health of 104 Australian-born and 126 Indo-Chinese adolescents from a State high school within a high migrant area of Melbourne. The mean DMFT score for the Australian-born group was 3.37 teeth, compared with 6.05 for the Vietnamese group, and 3.10 for the Kampuchean-Laotian group. More restorations and extractions were required by the Vietnamese subjects compared with the Australian-born and Kampuchean-Laotian subjects. Almost all subjects had gingivitis, however the proportion of IndoChinese subjects with shallow and deep pockets was greater than that of the Australian-born subjects. The periodontal health of the Kampucheans and Laotians was the most severe of the Indo-Chinese groups. These findings indicate that the IndoChinese adolescent refugees represent a high risk group for dental problems within the Australian population.

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