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An oral health promotion program for an urban minority population of preschool children
Author(s) -
Harrison Rosamund L.,
Wong Tracy
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
community dentistry and oral epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.061
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1600-0528
pISSN - 0301-5661
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0528.2003.00001.x
Subject(s) - medicine , vietnamese , family medicine , program evaluation , population , health promotion , environmental health , nursing , public health , philosophy , linguistics , public administration , political science
– The objective of this project was to design, implement and evaluate an oral health promotion program for inner‐city Vietnamese preschool children in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The project comprised of four general phases: information‐gathering, project planning, project implementation, and project evaluation. The information‐gathering phase of the project demonstrated extensive tooth decay in young children, bottle use during the day and during sleep‐time long past recommended weaning age, and a belief of many parents that primary teeth were not important. Based on this information, the project planning committee designed a program that featured one‐to‐one counseling supported by community‐wide activities. A Vietnamese lay health counselor provided counseling to mothers with telephone follow‐up that coincided with scheduled infant immunization visits to a twice‐monthly Child Health Clinic for Vietnamese families. At all the follow‐up assessment clinics scheduled over the 7‐year duration of this continuing project, mothers who had had more than one counseling visit reported significantly less use of sleep‐time and daytime bottles for their children, and their children demonstrated significantly reduced prevalence of caries compared to similarly aged children at baseline. One‐to‐one counseling with regular follow‐up provided by a lay person of similar background and culture to the participants is an effective way to facilitate adoption of healthy behaviors and to improve oral health of children.