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Comment by olodus | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a reference for that? I'm from Sweden and I can definitely say preventive dental care is a huge thing here. I felt your statement sounded weird so I googled around. DMFT seems to be one index used to rank countries oral health, which is produced by WHO. In that ranking several European countries beat or sit at US levels. Do you only mean eastern Europe?

This links to OECDs compilation of WHOs data, was easier to get the overview from imo: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/health_glance-2009-1...

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That study is for children. Oral health problems take years to surface and looking at adults would be a better way to measure these things.

Having lived in both the US and France, I can say that it’s been my experience that Americans have “nicer” looking teeth. Whether that translates into anything medically relevant is apparently really difficult to prove.

Could it be difference in diet and or smoking?

WHO produced the exact same data but for adults. I did see similar results there (several EU countries above US). You gave no references as response, instead giving another personal experience.

And? I was very clear that this was anecdotal and responding in a thread about the aesthetic aspect of teeth.

I’m sorry I didn’t dig any deeper than the link that was presented but it was about adolescent kids. And no one is saying that these differences show up in young people.

My original response were specifically about references. But sorry if it sounded more aggressive than it was. I mistook you for the original person I replied to, which made me answer more direct than maybe was necessary. Also, it was my bad for not linking the actual reference for WHOs adult data. I'll link it here instead [1]. That said, on second look it is from 2000, so it is much older than the one on children. Maybe not as reliable. I remain am quite sceptical to the claim that there is an actual difference between in oral health between EU and US though. And my original response were to someone saying preventive care is completely non-existent in EU, which is simply demonstrably wrong.

[1]: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/66521

Sorry that it took me so long to respond. I was wrong to over generalize to the EU. My personal experience is with countries around the Mediterranean and I maintain that while it may be available it’s not taken advantage of the way it is in the US.

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