Prevalence of caries, plaque and gingivitis in an urban and rural Tanzanian child population.

A longitudinal study of the oral condition of 763 schoolchildren was started in the Morogoro District of the Republic of Tanzania in 1984. The average baseline D3MFT scores of the 7-, 8- and -9-yr-old urban and rural children were 0.27, 0.33, 0.35 and 0.04, 0.23 and 0.23, respectively; the average deft values were 2.9, 2.4, 2.6 and 1.4, 1.9 and 1.4. The permanent dentition was caries free (D3MFT = 0) in 80 and 89% of the urban and rural children, respectively. Gingivitis was prevalent in rural (61%) and urban (55%) children; visible plaque was present in 93% of the children in both subsamples. The results of this baseline study show that the child population under study reflects the national Tanzanian situation with higher caries prevalence in urban than in rural children.