Associations among caries prevalence, DMF-T index, treatment needs and socioeconomic variables were evaluated by means of the Chi-Square, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Caries prevalence was 82.6% and the mean DMF-T index was 4.6. Only a mean of 0.8 tooth per individual presented treatment needs. Significant statistical differences were found in caries prevalence and severity (DMF-T).
The worst results were observed in the groups of lower income and purchasing power, indicating a need for the implementation of social policies that address these populations aiming at diminishing the existing differences in the health-disease process indicators. On the other hand, treatment needs were only associated to the Brazil Economic Classification Criterion variable (p < 0.05).