Nontraumatic Oral Health Classification for Alternative Use of Syndromic Data

Lack of access to regular dental care often results in costly, oral health visits to EDs that could otherwise have been prevented or managed by a dentist (1). Most studies on oral health-related visits to EDs have used a wide range of classifications from different databases, but none have used syndromic surveillance data. The volume, frequency, and included details of syndromic data enabled timely burden estimates of nontraumatic oral health visits for NC EDs.

Objective:

To develop a nontraumatic oral health classification that could estimate the burden of oral health-related visits in North Carolina (NC) Emergency Departments (EDs) using syndromic surveillance system data.