An oral health promotion program for an urban minority population of preschool children.
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.
Harrison
Rosamund L
RL
Division of Pediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. rosha@interchange.ubc.ca
Wong
Tracy
T
D001294:Attitude to Health; D001903:Bottle Feeding / Q000009:adverse effects; D001955:British Columbia; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003150:Community Health Workers; D003376:Counseling; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000517:prevention & control; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008913:Minority Groups; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D009909:Oral Health; D009910:Oral Hygiene; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D014094:Tooth, Deciduous / Q000473:pathology; D014504:Urban Health; D014744:Vietnam / Q000208:ethnology