Geoprocessing Oral Health Data: Case Study on Search for Treatment

Objective: This study aimed to describe an application of a geoprocessment technique on oral health data and verify it's usefulness on generating information for the planning of oral health services.

Methods: Records from 430 patients attended at the Pediatric Dental Clinic of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro were examined. Treatment needs, residential addresses and average duration of the trip from home to the clinic were considered. The studied area comprised the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, divided in 10 Programmatic Areas (PAs). Official information about economic status and public oral health services was collected. The spatial analysis was operated on the software ArcGis 9.0. The maps of Rio de Janeiro and images from the LANDSAT-7 satellite were generated from a 321 composition. Statistical analysis performed on software EpiInfo 3.3.2.

Results: Although the clinic receives patients from the whole city, mainly from it's northern zone (per capita mensal income of US$225), most of the patients (278) reside on the PA 3.1, where the University campus is located. The trip duration varies from 28.6min (±11.7min) to 150min (±34.6min) and is positively associated with search for orthodontic treatment (p=0.03) and negatively associated with search for restorative treatment (p=0.045). These findings suggest that while for those who live nearby the clinic may be searched as a low-cost dental care service, for patients who reside more distantly, it may be an alternative for those treatments not easily accessible at the health care public system.

Conclusions: Even for the limited approach proposed in this case study, geoprocessment proved to be useful on the identification of users' socio-demographic profiles, on the estimation of territorial coverage and on the planning of health care actions for a particular area. It is an interesting tool for transforming data into information for the planning of health care services.