Epidemiological database management system for community oral health

In not a few countries prevalence of dental caries is very high. Individual oral health status is affected by individuallevel variables and system-level variables. Where prevention has been introduced into the system the approach has tended to be simply technical and not based on a sound understanding of the dental and behavioral scientific bases of prevention and oral health educations. The establishment of an epidemiological database, which can serve as the database for realistic planning, monitoring and evaluation of present and fixture oral health care services is indispensable. The purposes of this research were to establish the computer program named as the Internet-Dental Epidemiology-system produced by Nishino in Tokushima-University(i-DENT) and to evaluate its usefulness in the ongoing community program called Ishiitown preschool Children Oral Health Care Study (ICOHCS). Ishii-town is in the suburbs of Tokushima city, Japan. ICOHCS started in 1986 and the i-DENT was established in 2000. i-DENT has used the Internet, dentists and people in public health center work in cooperation with each other. The i-DENT showed numerous advantages for oral health care services.