Population-based study reveals high prevalence of oral diseases in incarcerated adolescents, highlighting the urgent need for early preventative dental care.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of oral disease in Taiwanese adolescent prisoners. METHODS: We included 1,610 participants from the National Health Insurance (NHI) Program. Outcomes were measured using the clinical version of the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9-CM). RESULTS: The prevalence rate of oral diseases among adolescent prisoners in Taiwan was 29.38%, which was slightly higher among male (30.02%) adolescent prisoners than among female (27.34%) adolescent prisoners (p = 0.316). Among all the patients diagnosed with oral diseases, the top three disease categories were hard tissues of teeth diseases (19.01%), gingival and periodontal diseases (7.70%), and diseases of the oral soft tissues, excluding lesions specific for the gingiva and tongue (4.16%). CONCLUSION: Oral disease is not rare among Taiwanese adolescent prisoners. Early prevention and appropriate treatments are important. It is also essential to explore sex-specific needs for this subpopulation.
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Yang et al. (2025) studied this question.
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