New evidence reinforces need to look beyond dental chair to combat poor oral health

MEDIA RELEASE

New evidence reinforces need to look beyond dental chair to combat poor oral health

The old “drill and fill” approach to combatting poor oral health in children is no longer working. A new Cochrane review tested a range of global oral health promotion interventions to ascertain which intervention is most likely to improve oral health outcomes for youngsters.

Research Fellow at Dental Health Services Victoria and author of the review, Dr Shalika Hegde, said treating individuals solely in clinical settings and focusing entirely on individuals at high risk for oral disease is no longer effective.

“By doing so, we are only treating the symptoms of the disease. To improve oral health, we need to focus on prevention, invest our scarce resources meaningfully and look beyond just clinical settings. Strong links between children's settings and community-based dental services are required to ensure that children receive the treatment and preventive services needed, as early as possible”.

The review found that oral health promotion interventions that included supervised tooth brushing with fluoridated tooth paste were generally found to be effective in reducing tooth decay in children's baby teeth. Interventions of oral health education provided in an educational setting combined with professional preventive oral care in a dental clinic were effective in reducing caries in children's permanent teeth. Another most promising intervention approach seem to include improving access to fluoride in its various forms and reducing sugar consumption, although evidence is limited.

DHSV CEO, Dr Deborah Cole said evidence generated through the review has local and global implications in the area of models of oral health care, oral health promotion, research, policy and practice.   “This study is the first of its kind focusing on community-based population-level oral health promoting interventions targeting children from birth to 18 years of age. DHSV has a strong focus on evidence based practice through The Centre for Applied Oral Health Research which brings together a spectrum of high quality population level oral health research evidence.”

For more information and interview requests please contact DHSV Media and Community Relations Manager Suzana Talevski on  0407 961 413