Source 1

Source Document Analysis Worksheet

Grewal, Harpreet & Verma, Mahesh & Kumar, Ashok				26 November 2011
Author’s name (last, first)				Publication date
Prevalence of dental caries and treatment needs amongst the school children of three educational zones of urban Delhi, India
Title
Indian Journal of Dental Research		New Delhi, India, Department of Pediatric and Preventative Dentistry
Book series OR Journal		Location and publisher OR volume, issue, pages

1. What is the source’s stated purpose (the argument or thesis)?

The main purpose of this paper was to estimate the prevalence of dental caries (cavities) and treatment needs in the school going children of Delhi.

2. What evidence does the author provide to support his or her main argument? How is the author attempting to logically prove his or her thesis and how does this affect the organization of the document?

The authors are simply gathering information from school children in Delhi on dental availability and dental care. They take data that has been previously gathered by researchers about percentages of students with dental caries and compare it with what they learn. They discover that dental caries are on the rise, especially in developing nations. They also recognize that little research has been done regarding caries prevalence in Delhi school children, so much of what they find will be unique.

This is a research-based article, so the procedure, materials, analysis, and conclusions are drawn out. Their main findings were that 50.45% of boys and 55.61% of girls between the ages of 9 to 12 have dental caries. The total percentage was 52.3% amongst school children in Delhi. They also researched how much dental care would need to occur in each child’s mouth to fix their oral condition. About 50% of those children with dental caries would require one or two fillings, while the other 50% would require more extensive dental care.

The results of the increasing prevalence of dental caries could be a result of the fast changing lifestyles and eating habits of the metropolis. Much of the problem with dental caries comes from a lack of knowledge, positive attitudes, and affordability to the dental facilities available.

The authors stated, “it is difficult to provide curative treatment to such a vast and diverse population as access and affordability to the dental facilities become a constraint for majority of the population. The curative approach is limited only to the people who can afford the expenses and impose a financial burden on the remaining population. Therefore, for effective management of dental caries, emphasis should be laid upon designing suitable preventive and promotional oral health strategies.”

3. Who is the audience? What does the author assume the audience already knows about the topic?

The audience is anyone involved in or curious about the dental condition in India. Dentists may be curious what percentage of the population suffers from a very common oral problem and the business that their clinic has the potential to pull in. This information is also helpful for organizations or services that seek to aid those that cannot afford dental care. Hopefully, this data can be used by the government to create programs that will help curb this increasing problem.

4. Describe the author’s methods (i.e. how does the author know what he or she knows)?  In your opinion were they appropriate why or why not?

The authors know what they know from firsthand experience. They were able to travel to India and perform this study to observe the condition of oral care. They chose the city of Delhi and split it into three educational zones. A school from each zone was then selected at random. They were very appropriate in what they obtained and the manner in which it was done.

5. To what other sources (theorist, researchers, artists) does the author refer? Explain the specific ideas the author draws upon from these other sources to support his or her own argument (the theoretical framework).

The authors refer to a few previous researchers who had performed similar studies. Those that were referenced were National Oral Health Survey, Das et al., Rodrigues and Damle, and Shourie. Previous research about oral care, specifically dental caries, has been performed in the past by these groups. They all gather similar data as to the percentage of children with caries, which helps support that the data is being obtained in a verifiable manner. All of these studies support the concern and attention that needs to be taken to help slow down this oral health problem.

6. What are the connections between this source and your project? How useful or applicable is this source’s approach to your own project? How is yours new and different? 

My project will be heavily dental related. It will not be as quantifiable as this since I will not be able to look into patients’ mouth and observe the dental condition. I will also not be able to know the treatment that can be performed to help each individual patient. But, this article does give a great deal of information on the oral condition in India. It also shows the importance and availability of dental care within an urban population. I will most likely be able to observe the sociological view of dental care amongst the people and their perception of it. I might be able to gather information from local dentists if needs be and apply that to my research, but most of my research will be obtained through conversation. My research will focus on a specific aspect of dental care and how the people view it, while this paper mainly focused on whether cavities were prevalent amongst school children in an urban population. I will take what they studied and ask if people are concerned about it.