ArticleHealth promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals2020
A Markov cost-effective analysis of biannual fluoride varnish for preventing dental caries in permanent teeth over a 70-year time horizon.
Article in Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Transition probabilities for caries in children receiving silver diamine fluoride: a community-based randomized clinical trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Effectiveness of a School-Based Oral Health Promotion Program on Dental Caries Among Iraqi School Children: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial.International dental journal · 2025Trial
- Oral health care for Australians living with mental ill-health: unaffordable, inaccessible and invisible.The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry · 2026Article
- Discounting Practices in Cost-Effectiveness Analyses in Dentistry: A Systematic Review of Studies Published After 2020.ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research : CEOR · 2026Review
- Economic evaluation on dental caries preventive interventions for Australian children using a priority-setting approach.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2025Article
- Effects of a Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax on Caries in Italy: A Modelling Study.Caries research · 2025Article
- Leadership, regulatory approaches and policy to re-orientate health services towards health promotion.Health promotion international · 2024Article
- Cost-effectiveness analysis design for interventions to prevent children's oral disease.Frontiers in oral health · 2024Article
- Cost-effectiveness of dental caries prevention strategies in South African schools.BMC oral health · 2023Article
- Prioritizing population oral health through public policy in Australia: the Victorian experience.Health promotion international · 2023Article
- Topical Fluoride Applications Related Posts Analysis on Twitter Using Natural Language Processing.Oral health & preventive dentistry · 2021Article
- Child Fluoride Varnish Programs Implementation: A Consensus Workshop and Actions to Increase Scale-Up in Australia.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- A Validation and Cost-Analysis Study of a Targeted School-Based Dental Check-Up Intervention: Children's Dental Program.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- A Markov cost-effective analysis of biannual fluoride varnish for preventing dental caries in permanent teeth over a 70-year time horizon.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2020Article
- Top 100 most cited economic evaluation papers of preventive oral health programmes: A bibliometric analysis.Journal of oral biology and craniofacial researchReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
issue addressedBiannual application of fluoride varnish is effective for dental caries prevention, but its cost-effectiveness using quality-adjusted life years (QALY) is unknown. This study performed a cost-effectiveness analysis, from the Australian health care system perspective of biannual application of fluoride varnish versus current practice (non-routine application) for an individual aged 15 years and older over a 70-year time horizon.
methodsHealth outcomes measured were the number of prevented decayed, missing, and filled teeth (prevented-DMFT) and QALY gained. The calculated incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was compared against the reference cost-effectiveness ICER threshold of AUD$28 033 per QALY gained. A published Markov model capturing dental caries progression of eight permanent molars was used. This 6-monthly cycle model represented ten possible health states for an individual tooth. A 5% discount rate was applied with relevant sensitivity analysis.
resultsIn the base-case scenario, the net cost for the intervention was $3600 compared to $2303 in the current practice arm. The intervention arm yielded 13.99 DMFT and 15.44 QALY gained, whereas the current practice arm yielded 15.52 DMFT and 14.74 QALY gained. The estimated ICER was $849 per prevented-DMFT and $1851 per QALY gained. Sensitivity analysis shows the ICER ranged from $424-$1807 per prevented-DMFT and $1851-$3941 per QALY gained.
conclusionBiannual professional application of fluoride varnish appears to be a highly cost-effective strategy and should be considered for universal funding in Australia's health care system.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.