Simulation Model for Planning Dental Caries Prevention at the Regional Level

Dental caries is a disease of the 21
^st
century. The best way to prevent this is to implement preventive programs. In planning such programs, it is important to select a configuration of services that will arrest dental caries, but also remain within the resource capabilities of the relevant regional authorities. The aim of this paper is to present a discrete event simulation model to test different scenarios of dental caries prevention addressed to children in a sample school in Southwest Poland. We developed and tested three scenarios which involves a different configuration of preventive services. The first scenario assumes fluoridation only, the second scenario assumes fluoridation, dental check-up and sealing, and the third scenario assumes all of the previous ones, plus education. By conducting simulation experiments, it is possible to select the third scenario which allows good results in the oral health of students, while using resources at a level that does not exceed the full-time annual employment in Poland: 491.7 and 285.9 h per year for dentists and nurses, respectively.