ABSTRACT
The characteristics of oral health problems and of their treatment are the primary factors which have determined the characteristics of oral health status indicators and the special potential for measurement in the field of oral health. In addition to being able to reflect dentistry's intervention, oral health status can also reflect to some extent the person's behavior regarding his or her oral health. This chapter describes the state of the art in approaches to measurement of oral health along the lines of several parallel classifications that is of the indices and of their purposes. These are the traditional indices that developed to serve the needs for clinical and epidemiologic studies, primarily of caries and periodontal diseases. Assessments of dental caries illustrate the high level of measurability and objectivity that can be achieved in the dental field. Periodontal disease is a disease of the tissues supporting the teeth. The inflammatory process involves only the gums or gingivae.
