Preventing Dental Caries for Hong Kong Kindergarten Children
- Date & Time:
Sepember 26, 2012 (Wed) | 12:45 - 2:00 p.m.
- Venue:
Room P6-03, Graduate House
- Speaker:
Dr Chun-Hung Chu
Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Dentistry
Dr Chu and his team members, Professor Edward C M Lo, Dr Xiao-Li Gao, Mr Alex Man-Him Chau, Ms Ivy Di Wu, Ms Emily Ming Jiang and Mr Marcus Ho-Tak Fung, received the Faculty Knowledge Exchange (KE) Award 2011 of the Faculty of Dentistry for the "Promoting Oral Health of Hong Kong Preschool Children through Educating their Parents and Kindergarten Teachers" project.
Abstract:
Early childhood caries (ECC) is tooth decay in a child before 6 years old. According to the survey by the Department of Health, 51% of the 5-year-old Hong Kong children suffered from ECC. Supported by the S K Yee Medical Fund, this project aims to work with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to set up an outreach dental service to prevent and control ECC amongst preschool children in Hong Kong.
In this project we worked with various NGOs to provide free outreach dental service to selected kindergartens, with a well-defined plan to benefit multiple stakeholders. We not only want to educate the children but also help parents to take proper care of their children's oral health. We also aim to benefit another stakeholder group, i.e. the kindergarten teachers. Oral health education training workshops were designed to equip them with adequate knowledge and skills to deliver oral health education in kindergartens. Teaching aids such as dental models, posters, booklets, video CD and leaflets were distributed to the kindergartens.
This project involved 100 kindergartens from October 2011 to July 2012. A total of 10,956 children participated and we found that on average, each child had 1.8 untreated decayed teeth. In addition, more than 1,000 teachers were trained. A pilot service of the ECC prevention workshop was also conducted for parents of the kindergarten children, and more than 200 parents attended. Upon completion of this project, we have also successfully transferred the knowledge to the NGOs concerned to ensure sustainability of the effort.