Area-level social development and indicators of public dental services in Southern Brazil.

This study found associations between municipal social development and public dental services indicators in Southern Brazil. However, higher HDI was associated with lower public dental health service coverage, lower proportion of extraction and higher coverage of supervised tooth brushing [Correction added on 2 April 2019, after first online publication: In the preceding sentence, the text "but with a higher proportion of extraction and supervised tooth brushing" was changed to "lower proportion of extraction and higher coverage of supervised tooth brushing"]. Municipal HDI contributed significantly towards the gap in public dental coverage between fluoridated and nonfluoridated municipalities, favoring nonfluoridated municipalities. These findings have important policy implications for reducing oral health inequalities as it highlights the interplay between key oral health policies and their distribution according to municipal social development.