Reducing oral disease among preschool children through implementation of nutrition and dental hygiene education to parents and children

Dental caries remains the most prevalent, yet the most preventable chronic childhood disease in the world. Dental caries has been and continues to be a major health concern worldwide. The present work proposes a curriculum that is aimed at educating parents and preschool age children on how to reduce the risk of childhood caries by improving their nutrition and dental hygiene. This curriculum consists of three lessons for the children and four lessons for the parents. The first three lessons for both the parents and children contain the same topics: instruction on oral hygiene, appropriate timeframes for visits to the dentist, and nutritional information to reduce consumption of sugary foods and drinks. The additional fourth lesson discusses pregnancy and oral health, with the goal of educating parents before the child is born. A panel of 3 experts was selected to review the curriculum and their recommendations gave it further substance. We believe education to be a crucial factor in the improvement of oral health behaviors, knowledge, and self-efficacy of parents and children. Programs such as this may ultimately reduce oral disease among preschool children.