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Oral health knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in rural Haiti: a 40‐year follow‐up study
Author(s) -
Katz Ralph V.,
Prophete Samuel E.,
Lafontant Christina,
Gebrian Bette,
Bourdeau Louis C.,
Joseph JR Ernst,
Lafontant Gladys J.,
St. Jean H. Ludwig,
Rundberg Paul E.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of public health dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1752-7325
pISSN - 0022-4006
DOI - 10.1111/jphd.12270
Subject(s) - oral health , population , rural population , rural area , public health , medicine , environmental health , socioeconomics , geography , demography , psychology , family medicine , sociology , nursing , pathology
This paper reports the changed findings over a 40‐year period on oral health knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of a very remote and rural population living the Jeremie region of Haiti. The far‐sighted investigators of that original 1970 survey stated in their published 1972 paper that our “…findings are descriptive, but have to be accepted tentatively rather than definitively because time was short, transportation was difficult, and the small sample that had to be used could not random.” They further insightfully stated their hopes that their “…results may be regarded as an anthropological cultural baseline from which to review further findings concerning Haitian dental beliefs.” The two follow‐up surveys in 1997 and 2010 using the same exact KAP questionnaire on the same population of rural Haitians living in the Jeremie region fulfilled the extraordinary vision of those two initial investigators, Dr. Wesley Young (a nationally renowned U.S. public health dental academician) and Paul Rundberg (then a dental student at the University of Kentucky).