Oral health disparities among Brazilian self-identified indigenous individuals

This article aimed to use epidemiological constructs to describe and analyze the oral health burdens among self-identified indigenous individuals in Brazil and to compare the findings with the oral health status within the non-indigenous population. The study utilized secondary data from the Oral health Brazil database (SB Brasil 2003) to address the null hypothesis that there were no oral health differences between self-identified indigenous and non-indigenous individuals in Brazil. Indigenous individuals had 3.17 (95% C.I.:2.44--4.13) greater odds of never having visited a dentist’s office than non-indigenous individuals. Indigenous persons had 1.55 (95% C.I.:1.20--2.00) greater odds of having periodontal problems than non-indigenous persons. Indigenous children had 1.71 (95% C.I.:1.37--2.14) higher odds of having a decayed, missing, and filled teeth score different from zero than non-indigenous children. Finally, indigenous persons were found to have 1.24 (95% C.I.:1.07--1.45) greater odds of not being a caries free individual than a non-indigenous person. The results lend credence to the suspicions that in Brazil there are unequal and unfair differences in oral health status and access to dental care between self-identified indigenous individuals and their respective national counterpart.