Dental Disease Case Study

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Oral health is essential to the overall wellbeing of an individual. Poor oral health occurs from poor oral hygiene and other oral health related problems. Some oral diseases include oral infections, trauma, injuries, hereditary lesions and oral cancer among others. The commonest types of oral diseases are dental diseases. Dental diseases are disease conditions that affect the teeth and surrounding tissues. In this study, the terms “oral diseases” and “dental diseases” are used interchangeably.

The most common dental disease conditions are dental caries and periodontal disease. Dental affects about 90% of the world’s population while periodontal disease which affects about 20% of the world’s population

The costs of treating dental conditions can be enormous and the World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies oral diseases to be among the most expensive diseases to treat (Hayes et al., 2013). In industrialised countries, dental treatment accounts for between 5% and 10% of total health care expenditures (WHO, 2013).

Countries within the European Union spent €54 billion on dental treatment and care in 2004 (Patel, 2012). In the United States, dental healthcare expenditure continues to rise. For instance, total dental expenditure for children aged 5-17 years amounted to $20 billion in 2009 (CDC, 2014). The situation is different in the developing world. There are unmet population needs for oral health care in countries like Tanzania where the government’s oral healthcare budget was inadequate to meet the increasing oral health needs of the population (Astrøm & Kida, 2007). Also, individual households in Kenya finance oral health care mainly from out-of-pocket payments (Kaimenyi, 2004). In Ghana, basic dental treatments are covered by the National Health Insurance and other private insurance providers but dental patients are compelled to make out-of pocket payments when more advanced dental treatments are

Patients incur these costs in the form of medical and non-medical costs. The medical costs cater for the payments made for dental consultation, diagnostics, treatment and medication. Some costs are covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and other private health insurance providers while out-of-pocket payments are made for dental services that are not covered by insurance. The non-medical costs include travelling costs, cost of food and other miscellaneous expenses made because of the