Creation, Design and Implementation of TOHAP Database

Abstract

The Oral Health of our Aging Demographics (TOHAP) is a study being lead by clinician researchers in the Faculty of Dentistry at Dalhousie University; Halifax, NS. The primary objective of this three-year (2008-2010) provincial study is to develop a clearer picture of how the oral health and expectations of the “baby boomer” (45y-64y) generation differ from those preceding them (65y+) for the purpose of planning and policy creation. Currently there are no national or provincial databases to reflect oral heath status and treatment needs of the aging Canadian population. This Nova Scotia study will be the first of its kind to develop clear baseline measures related to clinical oral health status and quality of life. It is estimated that 1200 samples will be examined in this survey across the Nova Scotia. The TOHAP database is a developed relational database system to capture, store and retrieve information related to clinical exam component of the survey; and also this system is able to incorporate and adapt results from the interview database (that will be created by a third party marketing company) into the existing clinical database. With appropriate data mining techniques and statistical analysis of the data captured and stored in the system, the TOHAP researchers will not only be able to determine the sample’s health status but also measure the other oral health outcomes. MySQL is the relational database management system (RDBMS) using in the TOHAP survey. The web interfaces were created for data entering into MySQL Server. HyperText Markup Language (HTML), PHP, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript were used in designing most of the web pages. phpMyAdmin is also used to connect the TOHAP database in order to manipulate the MySQL Server.