PUTRAJAYA, July 28 — The Ministry of Health (MoH) has been conducting a national survey of adult oral health to obtain data on dental health as well as dental disease burden among Malaysians since last month.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the National Health and Morbidity Survey: National Oral Health Survey for Adults 2020 (NHMS 2020: NOHSA 2020) will run for four months.
He said NHMS 2020: NOHSA 2020 involves house visits to selected homes and is expected to involve a total of 23,000 respondents aged 15 years old and above from 11,300 households.
“A total of 65 inspection teams have been deployed for the survey to collect data involving interviews and oral health examinations that include teeth, gums, and oral lesions,” he said in a statement today.
He said the survey should have been carried out in 2020 but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the country.
NHMS 2020: NOHSA 2020 is a collaboration between the MoH’s Dental Health Programme and the Public Health Institute (IKU), he said, adding that it is the fourth dental health survey of adults and is conducted every ten years.
Dr Noor Hisham said one of the main findings of the previous survey carried out in 2010 showed a high burden of dental diseases among Malaysians aged 15 years old and above, namely 88.9 per cent had dental caries and gum disease (94 per cent).
Following the 2010 survey, the National Oral Health Plan 2011-2020 included various initiatives and prevention programmes, he added.
He said NHMS 2020: NOHSA 2020 findings will be used to assess the effectiveness and impact of the initiatives and dental health programmes implemented nationwide.
“Results obtained from this survey will be used as baseline data for the National Oral Health Strategic Plan (2022-2030) as the majority of the existing data were obtained from Malaysians using the MoH facilities only and do not represent the whole population,” he said.
