Design considerations for a relational database schema to hold dental epidemiological data

Dental surveys to collect data on the developing dentition of school children are routinely performed by many health authorities in the UK. A standard software package is used by Health Authorities to store the results of the surveys. At present only one data file can be loaded into the dental survey program for analysis at any given time. Analysis of more than one data set at a time is therefore not possible. The overall aims of the collection of vast amounts of clinical data are many. Analysis of data sets containing both clinical and socio-economical data elements are of great interest to senior management of Health Authorities. The results of data analysis can aid in the planning and provision of dental resources in areas of identified need. To date no evidence is available to suggest that previous efforts to amalgamate and analyse the available epidemiological data have been made. This paper looks at the problems and a possible solution of designing and populating a relational database with the collection of survey data sets.