ABSTRACT
In 1976, the US Congress required federal agencies to collect, analyze, and publish health, social, and economic data on Hispanic Americans, but much of their health status remains largely undefined. Consequently, comparative, supporting, and longitudinal health data are lacking as well as information about health knowledge, attitudes, and practices. The Centers for Disease Control has indicated that periodontal disease is a likely complication in diabetics. This provides additional urgency for a better understanding of the epidemiology and nature of periodontal disease, especially in Mexican Americans. The lack of consistent or joint association of risk factors that presently are considered important, and the failure of those risk factors to explain the variability in presence of advanced periodontal disease, has also caused conventional ideas of etiology to be questioned. Specific sociodemographic, nutritional, and behavioral risk factors in oral disease should be studied, leading to risk-assessment studies and demonstration projects.
