Eurochild member, Nossa Senhora do Bom Sucesso Foundation (NSBSFoundation), which has promoted health and child development for all since 1951, is behind this award-winning project.
The Foundation promotes healthy child development through:
- health education and empowerment, leading to the adoption of healthier lifestyles;
- early diagnostics through regular screenings to detect abnormalities;
- timely treatment of detected abnormalities;
It takes into account and acts upon the various health determinants – physical and biological, ecological, lifestyle, access to services, social and economic – of each beneficiary.
Health, along with education, is the most important factor to break intergenerational poverty cycles. Vulnerable children have a heavy burden of social and economic determinants of health, and very limited access to quality healthcare. That’s why the Foundation’s universal access is of such importance for those children, giving them the high-quality healthcare they need.
The Foundation’s child health monitoring programme includes universal access to oral health. This program is performed by oral hygienists (for screenings) and dentists (for treatment), and its main goal is the prevention of tooth decay and other oral diseases.
The Smiling project aims to measure the outcomes of the oral health programme in children aged 10–13 using two (inter)national oral health indicators:
- the decayed, missing, and filled teeth index, which measures the lifetime experience of tooth decay, both in primary and in permanent dentition (tooth development);
- the percentage of children free of tooth decay.
In order to measure these outcomes among the children aged 10–13 enrolled in the Foundation’s oral health programme, we isolated two groups:
- Group 1 (N=141): those who began oral health screenings at the age of 3
- Group 2 (N= 47): those who began at the age of 10 or later
Some key results:
1. Average decayed, missing and filled teeth index
a. In the primary dentition, Group 1 scores 0.4 and Group 2 scores 1.0
b. In permanent dentition, Group 1 scores 0.8 and Group 2 scores 2.0
2. Children free of tooth decay: 84.4% in Group 1; 51.1% in Group 2
The results show that children who began oral health monitoring at the age of 3 have better oral health outcomes than those who began later. Given the importance of oral health in overall health status (recognized by the World Health Organisation), preventative oral healthcare leading to better oral health also contributes to the general good health of a child. And the earlier we start, the better the outcomes!
The NSBS Foundation strongly believes that investing in the first years of life is the best way to build a healthier and more sustainable society.
Learn more about the Smiling project here.
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