Oral Health Inequalities among Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Children

INTRODUCTION

Our ability to address child oral health inequalities would be greatly facilitated by a more nuanced understanding of whether underlying disease experience or treatment opportunities account for a larger share of differences between social groups. This is particularly relevant in the context of population subgroups who are socially marginalized, such as Australia's Indigenous population. The decayed, missing, and filled (dmf) surfaces index is at once a reflection of dental caries experience (d) and its management (m and f).

OBJECTIVES

To 1) describe socioeconomic inequalities in dental caries experience and its management among Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and 2) compare these inequalities using absolute and relative measures.

METHODS

Data were from the Australian National Child Oral Health Study 2012-2014. Absolute and relative income inequalities were assessed for overall dmfs and its individual components (ds, ms, fs) using adjusted means and health disparity indices (Slope Index of Inequality [SII] and Relative Index of Inequality [RII]).

RESULTS

Mean dmfs among Indigenous children aged 5 to 10 y was 6.4 (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.4-7.4), ranging from 2.3 in the highest to 9.1 in the lowest income group. Mean dmfs among non-Indigenous children was 2.9 (95% CI, 2.8-3.1), ranging from 1.9 in the highest to 4.2 in the lowest income group. Age- and gender-adjusted social gradients for Indigenous children were evident across all dmfs components but were particularly notable for ds (SII = -4.6, RII = -1.7) and fs (SII = -3.2, RII = -1.5). The social gradients for non-Indigenous children were much lower in magnitude: ds (SII = -1.8, RII = -1.6) and fs (SII = -0.7, RII = -0.5).

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that socioeconomic disadvantage may translate into both higher disease experience and increased use of dental services for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups, with the social gradients being much more amplified among Indigenous children.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER STATEMENT

The findings of this study demonstrate the magnitude of disparities in dental caries among children by population groups in Australia. Our results suggest that the relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and poor oral health is more deleterious among Indigenous than non-Indigenous children. Tackling upstream determinants of health might not only affect population patterns of health and disease but also mitigate the overwhelming racial inequalities in oral health between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Optische Kern-Spin-Polarisation in Molekül-Kristallen

This paper deals with the polarisation of nuclei in molecular crystals due to their hyperfine interaction with optically excited triplet states and excitons, a phenomenon which is termed optical nuclear polarisation (ONP).

A theory is presented which extends the mechanisms of dynamic nuclear polarisation (Overhauser effect) to the case of spin systems containing triplet states with S = 1 and nuclei with I = 1/2. In this mechanisms the optical electron polarisation (OEP) caused by symmetry selection rules for intersystem crossing to and from the magnetic triplet sublevels is assumed to be transferred to the nuclear magnetic substates by efficient hyperfine relaxation transitions.

The adiabatic fast passage is used to detect the nuclear polarisation. The advantages and conditions of this technique as compared to other nmr techniques are discussed.

ONP results at room temperature are given as a function of the external field H0, its orientation with respect to the crystalline axes, the intensity and frequency of the exciting light and the concentration and types of guest molecules. In phenazine crystals relative polarisation factors up to 50 are found with marked orientation dependencies even in fields as high as 11 kG. These results can be interpreted in principle in terms of the presented theory. However, in low fields (0 - 200 G) where ONP caused by hyperfine relaxation vanishes, large polarisations are found in doped crystals of fluorene and anthracene. The maximum absolute polarisation in fluorene doped with acridine is 3.6 · 10-4 at H0 = 80 G corresponding to a relative polarisation factor of ~ 104. The effect of doping is discussed.. Reference is made to a possible ONP mechanism 3 which is able to produce large nuclear polarisations at low fields

Direkte Bestimmung des absoluten Vorzeichens des Triplett- Nullfeld-Parameters D mit hochauflösender optischer Detektion von ESR / Direct Determination of the Absolute Sign of the Triplet Zero Field Parameter D by High Resolution Optical Detection of ESR

The electronic triplet state sublevels of aromatic molecules generally have different energies already at zero external magnetic field. This zero field splitting usually is too small to be resolved by a high resolution optical spectrometer, and only a high magnetic field (typically 30 kG) yields enough Zeeman-splitting to allow full resolution. From the Zeeman pattern one can extract the absolute sign of the triplet parameter D, which probes the electronic wavefunction of the triplet state.

Compared with purely optical methods with their inherent lack of resolution, we demonstrate that a double resonance method yields the sign of D even in relatively small magnetic fields due to the improved optical resolution.

This double resonance method is a modification of Optical Detection of ESR (ODMR). Now the sign determination seems to be a routine procedure.

Direct effects of protirelin (TRH) on cultured porcine thyrocytes

In several cases of thyroid adenoma in which no TSH was detectable in the serum, a paradoxical decrease of PB123I and its conversion rate Q (PB123I/serum total radioactivity) was observed after infusion of protirelin (TRH). The possibile direct effect of TRH on thyrocytes was therefore studied in vitro. Porcine thyroid cells were cultured in NCTC-135 medium supplemented with a serum substitute and insulin. TRH and some of its analogs enhanced the incorporation of [3H]thymidine into DNA and the uptake of radioiodide into thyrocytes. In the presence of TSH, TRH did not stimulate radioiodine uptake, whereas incorporation of [3H]thymidine into DNA was not antagonized by TSH. Thus, in this culture system, TRH had a direct effect on both growth and metabolism of thyrocytes. TSH can modulate these effects.

[Restricted mouth opening as a leading symptom of trismus-pseudocamptodactyly syndrome]

In the absence of pain or dental findings, incapacity to open the mouth fully, concomitant with a typical restriction of movement of the fingers is defined as the trismus-pseudocamptodactyly syndrome. This autosomal dominantly inherited feature is quite rare. So far only affections of families in the USA, the Netherlands, Canada and, recently, Japan, have been reported in the literature. Now, a German case affecting six members of the same family has been found for the first time. An important factor to be considered in the differential diagnosis of painless chronic trismus, this syndrome is described here.