Worldental Daily Istanbul 2013

News Advance Issue The prevalence of edentulism in the 65–74 age group was indeed very high (48.8 per cent). One reason might be that access to dental health services used to be inadequate in Turkey in both rural and urban areas. In addition, there is the widespread belief that the loss of teeth is un- avoidable as one grows older. There- fore,toothextractionsarecommonin this age group, who simply consider this treatment method cheaper and more practical. Other significant factors for re- tainingfunctionaldentition(meaning 21 or more teeth) at this age were place of residence, health insur- ance and the number of previous dental visits. For example, our study demonstrated that elderly people with no health insurance also had a higher incidence of edentulism (53.2 per cent). Why do women seem to suffer significantly more from oral disease than men do? I believe this issue is related to the status of women inTurkey. Gender discrimination in our country is still present in almost all aspects of life, includinghealth. The dentist–patient ratio in 2011 was1:3,500,whichisbelowtheEuro- peanaverage.Doesthecountryneed more dentists to serve its 73.6 mil- lion population? Ithinkforthenearfutureitismore important to distribute the potential dental work-force throughout the country more equally and to train people better to seek oral health care services before presenting with symptoms of oral disease. Inaddition,dentistsshouldbeedu- cated in a more prevention-oriented manner during their undergraduate studies. Quality and an ethical work philosophy should be more important thanquantity. Every second dentist in Turkey works in one of the five largest cities, an area that equals only 1/40,000 of thecountry’stotalarea.Whatisaccess to oral health care services like in the rest of the country, which is primarily agrarian? In most villages, oral health care facilities simply do not exist. Most vil- lagers therefore have to go to a district centre in order to attend one of the few government-run oral health care centres, which serve as clinics rather than primary care units. There are very fewprivatefacilitiesindistrictcentres. According to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develop- ment report, Turkey currently spends only6percentofitsGDPonhealthcare. Whatroledoesthelackofknowledgere- gardingthebenefitsofgoodoralhealth playcomparedwithotherfactors? Indeed, the least is spent on oral health care and most of the money allocated is spent on treatment rather than prevention. It would be beneficial if knowledge about good oral health behaviour could be spread among the population. Everyone knows the risks of poor oral health for general well- being, yet most people do not brush theirteethregularlyandcorrectly. With growth rates of about 10 per cent, Turkey is currently one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe and worldwide. Do you think that this willhaveanyimpactontheoralhealth status of Turks, and what needs to be donetoraiseawarenessofandspend- ingonoralhealthcareinthefuture? Being one of the fastest-growing economies is not enough. More im- portant for improving oral health and general health is the equal and fair distribution of available resources. If this cannot be provided, very few will be able to benefit from the effects of economicdevelopmentinthelongterm. Under the Live.Learn.Laugh. pro- gramme,theFDIhasconductedanumber of programmes in partnership with the Turkish Dental Association and corpo- ratepartnerstoraiseawarenessofgood oralhealthamongTurksinrecentyears. What do you think the effect of these measures has been, and does Turkey requiremoreoftheseprogrammes? Ifconductedcountrywide,especial- ly in rural districts, these programmes canhaveanimportanteffect,butinmy opinion it would be far more effective to have oral health interventions per- formed within routine health services andbyresponsiblepersonnel. Thank you very much for the in- terview. 6 www.fdiworldental.org ITheprevalenceofedentulismamongelderlyTurksisveryhigh. (DTI/PhotoMartinLehmann,Germany) page 4 AD