AbstractThe relative importance of associations between caries occurrence and exposure to sugar‐sweetened products, fluoride preventives, medication with drugs affecting saliva secretion and the standard of oral hygiene was assessed in 125 mentally retarded and 79 healthy 9–10‐yr‐old Finnish children. The evaluation of the relative importance of the associations was based on logistic regression analyses. For the mentally retarded children the most important determinant of caries risk was their poor standard of oral hygiene. Frequent use of sugar‐sweetened snacks was found to be an important determinant of caries risk for both the mentally retarded and the healthy