THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RİSK ASSESSMENT IN THE PREVENTION OF EARLY CHILDHOOD CARIES

Early childhood caries (ecc) which is a preventable and an infectious disease caused by transmission of mutans streptococci from mother to their children is significant public health problem in both the developed and developing countries. nowadays, strategies for preventing ecc were concentrated on the concept of risk assessment, which is aimed to the determination of the likelihood of the incidence of caries during a certain time period. this concept is different to the multifactorial risk determination focused on evaluation of biological, demographic and dieatary factors and the evaluation the prevalance and incidence of caries lesions. risk assessment, which is necessary component in the clinical decision making process provides to detect caries in its earliest stages and to determine the likelihood of the incidence of caries lesions. to prevent caries, high – risk childrens must be identified at on early age, and effective strategies including behaviour modification and preventive interventions should be adopted. therefore, health professionals who deal with children’s general health and oral health have an important role in the stage of prevention and early diagnosis of dental caries. in this context, they should be trained to perform an oral health risk assessment on all children beginning by 6 months of age. thus, during the formal and continuing education of medicine and dentistry the compherensive, useful and evidenced information must be given to the students and health professionals about etiology, epidemiology, risk assessment of the ecc, the preventive treatment modalities and behavior change, and it must be integrated to the practice programs.