190 - Correlation Between Childhood Obesity and Caries Rate

Purpose: The aim of this quality improvement (QI) project was to examine if there is a difference in caries rate between children in various weight categories.

Methods: Data was extracted from charts of patients who were seen at the Holyoke Health Center Pediatric Dental clinic between January-October 2022. The patients in this QI project were 12 years of age or younger. Children were divided into four subgroups depending on their weight percentile: Underweight (less than the 5th percentile), Normal weight (5th percentile to less than the 85th percentile), Overweight (85th percentile to less than the 95th percentile), and Obese (95th percentile or higher). Each patient’s DMFT score was calculated based on their most recent dental examination during the study period. Information regarding the patients’ race, insurance type (private, Medicaid, uninsured), and sex were collected to ensure a representative sample.

Results: The results of the QI project did not show a statistically significant difference between caries rate between the four weight categories, nor did it find statistically significant difference when comparing, race, insurance type, or sex.

Conclusion: This QI project revealed that weight is not a statistically significant factor in determining caries rate in the health center’s population. As such, obesity can be viewed as a condition with a multifactorial etiology, rather than only eating a diet high in cariogenic foods. This suggests that clinicians should focus on more than just reducing cariogenic diets in order to prevent children from getting caries.

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