Page 21 - The Dental Workforce in Malaysia

Introduction | 3

Oral health needs

Children’s and adult oral health status in Malaysia has been monitored
through epidemiological surveys that are conducted every 10 years.
Based on these surveys, dental caries remains a significant oral health
problem in Malaysia. However, there is evidence that reported dental
caries cases might be falling. The mean number of cases for decayed and
filled teeth (dft) for six-year-olds, was 3.6 in 2007 compared to 4.1 in
1997 while the occurrence of dental caries declined from 80.8% in 1997
to 74.5% in 2007 (Oral Health Division Malaysia, 2009, Oral Health
Division Malaysia, 1998). This is comparable to the mean number in
England (1.55) and Scotland (2.76) amongst five-year-old children in the
2002/03 period (Pitts et al., 2005). Similarly, the cases of caries among
the adult population also showed reductions from 94.6% in 1990 to
90.3% in 2000. Furthermore, the mean numbers of decayed, missing and
filled teeth (DMFT) cases for all age-bands in the population were also
reduced (Dental Service Division Malaysia, 1990, Oral Health Division
Malaysia, 2013b, Oral Health Division Malaysia, 2004). Similar trends
can also be observed in other countries, such as Australia (Calache and
Hopcraft, 2011), the UK (Gallagher and Wilson, 2009, Chesnutt, 2016),
and Canada (Abi Nahed, 2006).
However, the level of periodontal health is still considered poor;
1.5% of 16-year-olds had periodontal pockets of 4mm or more in 2007
while 28.5% of 35-44 year-olds had periodontal pockets of 4-5mm in
2000 (Oral Health Division Malaysia, 2010b, Oral Health Division
Malaysia, 2011, Oral Health Division Malaysia, 2013b). Over all, it was
recorded in 2010 that nearly 90% of adults need periodontal treatment in
the country. Meanwhile, past surveys have suggested that oral cancer is
not a major problem in Malaysia (Ng and Siar, 1992) as only 16 cases
were referred to oral surgeons under the national programme for cancer
in 2011. However there is evidence from health services that the majority
of cases were detected at later stages (Oral Health Division Malaysia,
2011). Moreover, about 5.4% of 12-year-olds had injuries to anterior
teeth in 2007 (Oral Health Division Malaysia, 2010a).
The global burden for oral conditions seems to have increased
unevenly in the past two decades, due to an increase of untreated caries and