Relación de los determinantes sociales y el índice PUFA, en Manta 2024.

Abstract

Untreated caries has negative consequences for the quality of life of individuals and can cause pain, infections, and loss of days of work or school due to these conditions. The social determinants of health influence how people get sick, socially more advantaged people and societies have better health outcomes than their disadvantaged counterparts. The objective was to establish the impact of the social determinants of health of the PUFA/pufa health indicator in the inhabitants of the Manta 2024 canton. A cross-sectional study was carried out in which 218 children and adolescents from different parishes of the canton were examined. The prevalence of pulp conditions because of untreated dental caries was 19.3% in primary dentition and 4.1% in permanent dentition. In addition, the PUFA/pufa index was 0.10/0.61. Regarding the social determinants investigated, it was identified that a high percentage have financial difficulties covering their expenses, including food. It was also observed that there is a high consumption of sweets, biscuits and other products that represent a risk of cariogenicity. There are problems such as unemployment and lack of income, undernourishment, low educational level of parents and difficulties in accessing health services.