The Effect of a Needs-Related Caries Preventive Program in Children and Young Adults – Results after 20 Years

The risk for caries development in children varies significantly for different age groups, individuals, teeth, and surfaces. Thus from a cost-effectiveness point of view, caries preventive measures must be integrated and based on predicted risk from age group down to individual tooth surfaces. Based on this philosophy and experiences from continuously ongoing research on evaluating and reevaluating separate and integrated caries preventive measures, as well as methods for prediction of caries risk, a needs-related caries preventive program was introduced for all 0–19-year-olds in the county of Värmland, Sweden, in 1979. The goals for the subjects following the program from birth to the age of 19 years were