Community-based program for managing caries in preschool children

Abstract

Dental caries in the primary dentition is common in preschool children in many communities in various countries around the world. Furthermore, a high proportion of the young children with dental caries do not visit a dentist for treatment and hence most of the decayed teeth remained untreated. Organizing community programs to reach out to these children and their caregivers is an efficient and cost-effective way to manage this dental public health problem. These community oral health programs can be organized by the government, NGO, or private dentists. This lecture will present a step-by-step approach to guide dentists to organize and implement small scale community caries management program for preschool children . The various cost-effective methods that can be incorporated in these programs will be presented and discussed. Examples of successfully implemented programs will be presented as illustrations in the lecture.