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American’s agree that dental health is important and vital to our overall wellbeing. However, not every American is achieving the same degree of oral health. Obstacles that American’s face include dental health disparities, limited access to affordable dental care, and limited access to dental insurance. This study examined how disease risk is shaped within the culture of oral health in Florida. This study examined those who provide dental care, those who cannot afford dental health insurance but earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, and those with dental insurance. Hypotheses two and three were proven to be true, while hypotheses one and four were proven to be false. Research indicated that the participants believe that pleasingly aesthetic teeth are highly desirable. It revealed that the poor and working poor are unable to utilize dental health insurance, and do not seek annual preventive dental health services due to the cost.

Epidemiological data reveal that one of the most common diseases in the world is dental disease. Scientific knowledge is available to prevent the vast majority of dental disease. Thus, individuals are not taking the necessary action to prevent caries and periodontal disease. Dental professionals try to facilitate primary prevention of disease through education and the correction of skill deficits with patients. Still billions of dollars are spent each year in the treatment of these diseases. This presents a major health and economic liability and demonstrates a clear need to implement additional behavioral management techniques in the field of dentistry. This study implements two behavioral management strategies, self-monitoring and monetary incentives, in a free dental clinic to explore the effects of these treatments on subject"s dental flossing rate. / M.S.

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<p>The aim of this study was to compare the oral health status between well and malnourished children under five years old attending Mother and Child Health clinic in Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Maseru, Lesotho.</p>

The rhetoric of primary health care, health promotion and health service integration is ubiquitous in health policy development in post-apartheid South Africa. However the form in which oral health promotion elements have actually been incorporated into other areas of health care in South Africa and the extent to which they have been implemented, remains unclear. The central aim of this research was to critically analyse oral health promotion elements in health policies in South Africa and determine the extent to which they have been implemented. The study set out to test the hypothesis that oral health promotion is fully integrated into South African health policy and practice.

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers. Essay I (with Linuz Aggeborn): Fluoridation of the drinking water is a public policy whose aim is to improve dental health. Although the evidence is clear that fluoride is good for dental health, concerns have been raised regarding potential negative effects on cognitive development. We study the effects of fluoride exposure through the drinking water in early life on cognitive and non-cognitive ability, education and labor market outcomes in a large-scale setting. We use a rich Swedish register dataset for the cohorts born 1985-1992, together with drinking water fluoride data. To estimate the effects, we exploit intra-municipality variation of fluoride, stemming from an exogenous variation in the bedrock. First, we investigate and confirm the long-established positive relationship between fluoride and dental health. Second, we find precisely estimated zero-effects on cognitive ability, non-cognitive ability and education for fluoride levels below 1.5 mg/l. Third, we find evidence that fluoride improves later labor market outcomes, which indicates that good dental health is a positive factor on the labor market. Essay II: I study the associations between cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and mortality using a population-wide dataset of almost 700,000 Swedish men born between 1950 and 1965. The abilities were measured at the Swedish military enlistment at age 18-20. In addition, I investigate if income and education are good proxies for the abilities. The results suggest that both cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are strongly associated with mortality, but that non-cognitive ability is a stronger predictor. The associations are only partly mediated through income and education. For middle and high income earners and individuals with a college education there are no associations with mortality. However, for low income earners and individuals without a college education, both abilities are strongly associated with mortality. The associations are mainly driven by the bottom of the distributions. Essay III (with Matz Dahlberg, Kevin Mani and Anders Wanhainen): We examine how health information affects individuals' well-being using a regression discontinuity design on data from a screening program for an asymptomatic disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The information provided to the individuals is guided by the measured aorta size and its relation to pre-determined levels. When comparing individuals that receive information that they are healthy with those that receive information that they are in the risk zone for AAA, we find no effects. However, when comparing those that receive information that they have a small AAA, and will be under increased surveillance, with those who receive information that they are in the risk zone, we find a weak positive effect on well-being. This indicates that the positive information about increased surveillance may outweigh the negative information about worse health. Essay IV: I estimate the effect of SSRI antidepressants on the risk of mortality for myocardial infarction (MI) patients using Propensity Score Matching on individual health variables such as pharmaceutical drug prescription, patient history and severity of the MI. The effect of antidepressants on mortality is a heavily debated topic. MI patients have an elevated risk of developing depression, and antidepressants are among the most common treatments for depression and anxiety. However, there are indications that some classes of antidepressants may have drug-induced cardiovascular effects and could be harmful for individuals with heart problems, but there is a lack of large-scale studies using credible identification strategies. My findings indicate no increased risk of two-year mortality for MI patients using SSRI. The results are stable for several specifications and robustness checks.

Essay I (with Mattias Öhman): Fluoridation of the drinking water is a public policy whose aim is to improve dental health. Although the evidence is clear that fluoride is good for dental health, concerns have been raised regarding potential negative effects on cognitive development. We study the effects of fluoride exposure through the drinking water in early life on cognitive and non-cognitive ability, education and labor market outcomes in a large-scale setting. We use a rich Swedish register dataset for the cohorts born 1985-1992, together with drinking water fluoride data. To estimate the effect we exploit intra-municipality variation of fluoride, stemming from an exogenous variation in the bedrock. First, we investigate and confirm the long-established positive relationship between fluoride and dental health. Second, we find precisely estimated zero effects on cognitive ability, non-cognitive ability and education. We do not find any evidence that fluoride levels below 1.5 mg/l have negative effects. Third, we find evidence that fluoride improves labor market outcome later in life, which indicates that good dental health is a positive factor on the labor market. / Essay II: Motivated by the intense public debate in the United States regarding politicians’ backgrounds, I investigate the effects of electing a candidate with earlier experience from elective office to the House of Representatives. The U.S. two-party-system with single-member election districts enables me to estimate the causal effect in a RD design where the outcomes are measured at the election district level. I find some indications that candidates with earlier elective experience are more likely to be members of important congressional committees. I also find some indications that directed federal spending (pork barrel spending) is higher in those districts were the elected representative had earlier elective experience prior of being elected to the House, but the effect manifests itself some years after the election. In contrast, I find no robust or statistically significant effects for personal income per capita or unemployment rate in the home district. / Essay III: This paper uses Swedish and Finnish municipal data to investigate the effect of changes in voter turnout on the tax rate, public spending and vote-shares. A reform in Sweden in 1970, which overall lowered the cost of voting, is applied as an instrument for voter turnout in local elections. The reform increased voter turnout in Sweden. The higher voter turnout resulted in higher municipal taxes and greater per capita local public spending. There are also indications that higher turnout decreased the vote share for right-wing parties. I use an individual survey data set to conclude that it was in particular low income earners that began to vote to a greater extent after the reform. / Essay IV (with Lovisa Persson): In a theoretical model where voters and politicians have different preferences for how much to spend on basic welfare services contra reception services for asylum seekers, we conclude that established politicians that are challenged by right-wing populists will implement a policy with no spending on asylum seekers if the cost is high enough. Additionally, adjustment to right-wing populist policy is more likely when the economy is in a recession. Voters differ in their level of private consumption in such a way that lower private consumption implies higher demand for basic welfare services at the expense of reception of asylum seekers, and thus stronger disposition to support right-wing populist policies. We propose that this within-budget-distributional conflict can arise as an electorally decisive conflict dimension if parties have converged to the median voter on the size-of-government issue.

Les pratiques d'hygiène bucco-dentaire dans les établissements accueillant des personnes en situation de handicap ou dépendantes sont très nettement insuffisantes, ce qui participe à augmenter le risque des pathologies bucco-dentaires de nature infectieuse et de leurs comorbidités pour la population qu'ils accueillent. Le projet Santé Orale et Autonomie (SOA) est une mesure développée dans le cadre du plan national de Prévention bucco-dentaire 2006-2009 qui visait à rémunérer des chirurgiens-dentistes, pour qu'ils mettent en place, après une formation en ligne, une action de promotion de la santé orale dans un de ces établissements, selon un protocole commun standardisé qui comportait : 1) une conférence de sensibilisation auprès du personnel 2) l'évaluation de l'état de santé bucco-dentaire des résidents 3) des ateliers de démonstration individualisée des techniques d'hygiène impliquant le personnel et les résidents. Ce travail décrit et évalue l'impact du projet SOA. Vingt-six chirurgiens-dentistes ont participé au projet dans sa totalité. A l'issue de leur formation en ligne, une augmentation significative de leur sentiment de compétence pour 16 aptitudes spécifiques a été observée. Une amélioration du contrôle de plaque a été notée pour 33,7% des résidents (n=691). Une amélioration des habitudes d'hygiène bucco-dentaire au sein des établissements a été observée pour 11,5% des résidents (n=814). Cette étude est la première à montrer l'impact relativement faible de ce type d'action et incite leur association à d'autres dispositifs de promotion de la santé orale. / Oral hygiene practices in special care establishments are clearly unsatisfactory, increasing the risk of infectious oral disease and associated morbidity for the population attending these establishments. The 'Oral Health and Autonomy' project was part of the French Oral Health Plan for 2006-2009. Dentists taking in part in the project completed an online training course and were reimbursed for the implementation of an oral health promotion intervention in a special care establishment. The interventions followed a standardised, common protocol, which included: 1) a conference presentation for the staff, 2) individualised oral risk assessment for each resident and 3) hands-on workshops demonstrating oral hygiene techniques for the residents accompanied by their key workers. This document describes and evaluates the impact of the 'Oral Health and Autonomy' project. Twenty-six dentists completed the project. After completion of the online training course, the self-efficacy of the dentists in 16 specific skills significantly increased. A decrease in the presence of dental plaque was observed for 33.7% of the residents (n = 691). Improvement in oral hygiene behaviour within the establishment was observed for 11.5% of the residents (n=814). This study is the first to show the relatively low impact of this type of intervention and suggests that different approaches to oral health promotion should be used in conjunction to improve outcomes.

Le processus carieux concerne tous les individus dentés. Cependant la fréquence de la carie varie entre populations, entre individus et chez un même individu au cours du temps. Une maitrise mondiale de l'incidence de la carie est cependant accompagnée de nombre de restaurations paradoxalement en croissance exponentielle. Ce fort taux de reconstitution coronaire et les caries récurrentes ont appelé en un affinement de la détection et du diagnostic en cariologie. La détection précoce des lésions carieuses et la mise en place de mesures préventives constituent le nouveau paradigme en santé publique dentaire. La prise de décision doit s'appuyer sur des données de qualité, des avis scientifiquement valables et de l'expertise qualifiée. Aux différents niveaux de décision correspondent des besoins d'informations différents en termes de forme, de contenu et de disponibilité. L'objectif de ce travail est d'évaluer l'applicabilité et la pertinence de l'intégration de l'indice ICDAS dans un système de gestion de base de données plus spécialement dans la région africaine. Les résultats permettront d'inciter les systèmes de santé africain à investir dans la recherche sur les preuves de l'efficacité et du coût-Efficacité de l'utilisation de système d'information de qualité dans le processus de prise de décisions politiques et faciliter l'émergence d'un nouveau paradigme qui conjugue et articule recherche – politique - pratique permettant l'échange et l'application des connaissances / The caries process concerns all toothed individuals. However, the frequency of caries varies between populations, between individuals and within the same individual over time. A world control of the incidence of caries is however accompanied by many restorations paradoxically growing exponentially. This high rate of coronary reconstruction and recurrent caries called a refinement of the detection and diagnosis in Cariology. Early carious lesions’ detection and the implementation of preventive measures is the new paradigm in dental public health. The decision-Making should be based on quality data, scientifically valid opinions and qualified expertise. At the various levels of decision correspond different needs for information in terms of form, content and availability. The objective of this study was to evaluate the applicability and relevance of the integration of ICDAS index in a database management system especially in the African region. The results will encourage african health systems to invest in research on evidence of effectiveness and cost-Effectiveness of the use of quality information system in the process of political decision-Making and facilitate the emergence of a new paradigm that combines and articulates research policy and practice for the exchange and the application of knowledge