Objective: To determine the long-term cost-benefit of a community-wide, publicly-funded dental prevention programme.
Design: A modelled economic analysis which extrapolated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness results of a three-year comprehensive preventive dental programme conducted in a single cohort of adolescents in the non-fluoridated towns of Geelong and Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Assumptions were made for both benefits and costs. Sensitivity analysis was undertaken to report a range of estimates of potential programme benefits.
Setting: All secondary colleges in two non-fluoridated regional centres and their surrounding rural areas.
Subjects: All Year 7 to 9 students; mean age range of 12.5 to 15.5 years.
Results: The incremental benefit-to-cost ratios under all assumptions improved with each successive year of the community-wide programme and, even with the most conservative of assumptions, the overall ten-year benefit-to-cost ratio was above unity.
Conclusion: While the analysis has inherent limitations as a result of its reliance on a range of assumptions, the findings do suggest that there are benefits to be gained from the implementation of a comprehensive dental preventive programme throughout the secondary school system in non-fluoridated centres comparable to Geelong and Ballarat.