FDI: practice data from more than 10,000 patients complement national surveys

Ten years of data collected in dental practices

FDI World Dental Federation has published the report Ten years of Oral Health Observatory data: Evidence, Impact and the Road Ahead, marking ten years of the Oral Health Observatory (OHO) programme. It brings together data collected from more than 10,000 patients in more than 12 countries.

Since 2016 the programme has collected data directly in dental practices — on oral health habits, disease burden, access to care and patient-reported outcomes. The point of the report is that such data, if standardised, complement national epidemiological surveys: they are generated in a timely way and are tied to a concrete clinical context, and so give national dental associations a basis for advocating oral health measures.

The report cites examples in which OHO data entered public policy debate, research, advocacy campaigns and capacity-building programmes in the participating countries. It was produced under the supervision of FDI's OHO Task Team and draws on contributions from national dental associations, dentists and patients involved since the programme began. The programme is financially supported by Haleon.

Context

National epidemiological surveys give a representative picture, but slowly and infrequently. FDI sees the advantage of practice data in its timeliness and clinical relevance, and what OHO actually offers is not the volume of data but a standardised form by which everyone records it in the same way.

For your practice

• If the practice keeps digital records anyway, a standardised form of the OHO type adds little work and makes your data comparable with that of others.
• Patient-reported outcomes — pain, difficulty chewing, avoiding smiling — are recorded alongside clinical findings in registries of this kind; they are worth entering in your own records as well, because the DMFT index on its own does not cover them.
• For chamber and association initiatives: the report is publicly available and can serve as a model when a data base is needed for advocacy before decision-makers.