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Factors associated with the development of dental caries in children and adolescents in studies employing the life course approach: a systematic review.

The purpose of this article was to conduct a systematic review of studies that used the life course approach to evaluate the association between factors experienced in early life and throughout the lifetime and the development of dental caries in children and adolescents. A systematic search of five electronic databases was carried out. Hand searches of the reference lists of the included articles and a gray literature search were also performed. Quantitative studies that adopted the life course approach to examine the factors associated with the development of dental caries in children and adolescents were selected. Abstracts were screened by two reviewers. Reports with relevant abstracts received full-text review and were examined for inclusion in the present systematic review. Qualitative evaluation of the included articles was carried out using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. As a result of the high degree of heterogeneity, meta-analysis was not feasible. Among the 48 articles submitted to full-text analysis, 11 were included in the present systematic review. Different life course factors were associated with the development of dental caries among children and adolescents, including sociodemographic, biological, psychological, and oral health behaviors, as well as the dental status of mothers, children, and adolescents.