Intra-urban differentials in child dental trauma in relation to Healthy Cities policies in Curitiba, Brazil

This paper is concerned with developing methods for assessing the potential impact of healthy public policies on health outcomes, particularly on dental trauma. The hypothesis is that in deprived areas of Curitiba, Brazil, there would be a lower prevalence of dental trauma in 12-year-old schoolchildren related to different degrees of implementation of healthy public policies. Fourteen socio-environmental variables gathered from 29 deprived areas were factor-analysed and three principal components (PCA) extracted: physical environment, public social policies, and social cohesion. Individual clinical data on dental trauma were collected for 2126 children from public schools in the areas. Rank correlation indicated that the relationship between components’ scores and dental trauma was statistically significant. The PCA scores explained 42% of the variance for dental trauma.