Tooth Smart Healthy Start: Oral Health Advocates in Public Housing

Dental caries is the most common, chronic disease of childhood, is increasing in prevalence, and disproportionately affects individuals who are financially disadvantaged and from racial and ethnic minority groups. Given the chronic nature of dental caries, clinically based preventive and restorative care alone will likely be inadequate to decrease disparities in early childhood caries (ECC) prevalence. We posit that a multimodal community-based approach, which addresses the chronic, infectious and multifactorial nature of dental caries, will be more effective than either behavioral counseling and the chemotherapeutic effects of fluoride alone. In addition to counseling and fluoride application, a successful community-based multimodal intervention will also need to equip caregivers with the skills to become involved in the prevention and management of ECC.

This group randomized clinical trial will test if a community-based multimodal intervention will reduce the 2-year ECC incidence of children aged 0-5 living in public housing developments. The intervention combines evidence based components and a unique delivery setting (public housing). We hypothesize that the multimodal intervention comprised of oral health assessment and feedback, fluoride varnish application, and motivational interviewing delivered by Dental Health Advocates (trained public housing residents) can reduce incidence of ECC in 0-5 year olds compared with a control group that receives oral health assessment and feedback, fluoride varnish application, and written oral health education materials.

This study is well poised for dissemination. Ultimately, this work could be disseminated nationwide and could potentially improve the oral health of over 500,000 family households and over 1 million children living in public housing.