**3. Methodologies**

The populations were 16 publications and presentations by KKU staffs and their students during 1984 to 2020 (**Tables 1** and **2**). The researches reviewed was approved by the Ethics Committee for Human Research at Khon Kaen University, Thailand [HE522167, HE532173, HE571074, HE591188, HE591199, and HE621269]. Most of the research was secondary data. Those who volunteered had signed a consent form.

Data and results about oral health problems and management were retrieved from 16 paper publications and presentations by KKU staffs and their students during 1984 to 2020 (**Tables 1** and **2**).


*Oral Health Problems of Thai People Reported by Khon Kaen University Staffs during 1984 to 2020 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100355*


*I, index journal; N, non-index journal; P, poster presentation; lr, literature review; Rw, research waiting for publication.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Summary of Oral health problems related to diseases from KKU staff and their students' publications and presentations during 1984–2020.*



*I, index journal; N, non-index journal; P, poster presentation'; lr, literature review; Rw, research waiting for publication.*

#### **Table 2.**

*Summary of Oral health care management by KKU staff and their students during 1984–2020.*

*Oral Health Problems of Thai People Reported by Khon Kaen University Staffs during 1984 to 2020 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100355*

#### **Figure 1.**

*Oral health problems: Causes and effects leading to related diseases.*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Procedure for the KKU preventive program for rural dental health care management of people in the Northeast of Thailand.*

To synthesize oral health problems and related diseases, included in the programs of health prevention and promotion from the 16 publications and presentations by KKU staffs and their students, we use two diagrams as follows:


### **4. Results**

In thirty-seven years of KKU field practice and research, it has been found that most students and staff had a good attitude towards practice in the community with other students and staff from various faculties. Each year, more than six hundred students and sixty staff participate in KKU field work. They provide oral health care and other health promotion work to the people in villages, and follow- up the work with those villagers after five years. Reports of follow-up studies have indicated that people in those communities have better health awareness, and the community leaders have discussed with KKU staff about other projects to implement in their community in later years. The KKU field practice has achieved its aim in equipping students with essential competency in sustainable health development for rural communities, while lessons learned had been discussed and distributed widely to the public [18–23].

Besides KKU field practice, the Department of Community Medicine, KKU has performed much more researches to develop the health status of the people in villages. Maternal and Child Health research studied children below 5 years and their mothers in two villages (Ban Had and Ban Nongtao) of Khon Kaen province [24].

Another two "excellence" projects have involved KKU staff which were 1) The Green Esarn Project which studied KAP of villagers in BanSum village, Mahachanachai district, Yasothorn province about oral health related to their environment [25], and 2) The Rural School Health Development Project: The School of the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Princess Mahachakri Sirindhorn studied KAP of villagers and dental treatment of the students in Nong Song Hong School, Khon Kaen province [26].

The results of these various studies show that poor oral health hygiene, smoking habits, betel quid chewing, and Muay Thai kickboxing of the Thai population still lead to many problems in all age groups (children, adults, workers, smokers, women who chew betel quids, Muay Thai kickboxing athletes, and the aging), both male and female. The studies indicates that bad oral hygiene leads to diseases such as oral health problems, exhaled carbon monoxide (ECO) levels, dental carries, tooth loss, and chronic gingival inflammation leading to esophageal cancer, and insufficient dental treatment (**Figure 1**).

The KKU Projects and other related projects show that after the projects had been performed by KKU staffs and their students from 1984 to 2020, the villagers had more awareness of their oral hygiene than in the previous year.

From **Figure 1**, we see that oral health problems: have 4 included variables; sport, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors as follows:

#### 1.Sport:

It was seen that 23.5% of 260 Thai boxing athletes had dental and jaw injuries. The popularity of this sport is still increasing in Thailand [6].

#### 2.Knowledge:

In particular, people lacked knowledge of dental care and lacked health education. The results showed that 63.9% of 1,500 workers did not use dental care services

during the previous year, mostly because they had no time to see the dentist and were unable to pay the cost of dental treatment [11].
