An economic analysis of oral health problems and treatments among adults in thoothukudi district of tamilnadu

Abstract

Risk is defined as the possibility of an adverse outcome, or a factor that raises this probability (Rothman, 2002). The World Health Report- 2002 (WHO, 2002a) presented evidence of the risks to health and the burdens that diseases impose on populations. According to this report, no risk arises in isolation, and generally each disease stems from a complex chain of causes. An adverse health outcome might have indirect (distal), direct (proximal) or specific local (biological) causes or a combination (Fig. 1.1). newline Indirect factors such as social gradients and socio-economic status (SES) factors, environmental, cultural and demographic risk indicators, and health system factors are risks that mostly occur at population level (Hobdell et al., 2003; Petersen, 2005). A social gradient proposes that the less-healthy individuals move down the social hierarchy, and the healthy ones move up (Kent and Croucher, 1998). SES indicators such as education, occupation and income are some determinants of social status. These indirect factors usually help to shape direct factors like psycho-social and behavioural factors that are formulate as life style, and individuals have some control over the latter (Sheiham and Watt, 2000). Biological causes are specific factors operating locally within the host s body or an environment like the oral cavity and we assess their effects independently for each disease (Burt, 2005). newlineTheoretical Approaches to Oral Health and its Risk Factors newline The study models evaluating oral health and its risk factors have produced proposals of several theoretical approaches to describe determinants of oral health. Based on the ICS II (International Collaborative Study-II) model (Petersen and Holst, 1995) a person s sex, education, occupation and health beliefs predispose him or her to engage or not engage in specific oral health behaviour.