Blood lead and oral health status among secondary school students in Duhok, Kurdistan region, Iraq

Abstract EN

Background and objective: It has long been believed that air, water and place have a direct bearing on human health.

In recent years there has been growing interest in understanding the exact role played by lead on oral health status.

The wide inconsistencies about the subject and the paucity of local studies in this context mandated the conduct of this study.

The objective was to investigate the relationship of blood lead with oral health status.

Methods: A cross sectional designs enrolling eight secondary schools in Duhok city has been adapted from 15th April to 15th June 2013.

The sample comprised 280 (188 males and 92 females) apparently healthy students aged 18-23yrs.

A questionnaire was used to obtain information on age, gender, drug history, acute and chronic illness.

This was followed by clinical dental examination to assess two standard oral health indices, namely, Decayed, Missing, Filled Surfaces (DMFS) and gingival index (GI) for each student.

Results: The mean blood lead was (4.4 ± 1.8 μg/dl), the value was higher in males than in females (p < 0.001).The mean DMFS was higher in females than in males (12.08 ± 5.52 vs.

10.37 ± 5.84 P <0.05), respectively while the mean GI was higher in males than in females (0.94 ± 0.77 vs.

0.49 ± 0.58 p < 0.001), respectively.

Blood lead was positively correlated with both DMFS and GI, the correlation was stronger with GI scores (r = 0.832,p<0.001) than with DMFS scores(r = 0.543, p < 0.001), Conclusions: Different levels of blood lead relate variably to oral health status.

Blood Lead correlates positively with both DMFS and GI scores.