{"id":135259,"date":"2021-02-10T14:06:51","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T00:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=135259"},"modified":"2021-03-03T16:01:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T02:01:33","slug":"uh-battles-keiki-dental-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/02\/10\/uh-battles-keiki-dental-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking toothbrushes to the schools, UH<\/abbr> battles widespread keiki dental decay"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>

\"dentist<\/p>\n

Children in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> have the highest prevalence of dental decay in the nation, according to a 2015 state Department of Health report. Statewide, 71% of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s third-graders experienced tooth decay, 22% had untreated tooth decay, and 7% needed urgent dental care, compared to the national rate of 1%.<\/p>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Maui College Dental Hygiene Program<\/a> and the UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene<\/a> with support from the Hawaii Dental Service<\/a> (HDS<\/abbr>) Foundation are leading various outreach efforts to improve oral health outcomes for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s keiki. These efforts are focused on providing treatment and education in elementary schools on Maui, Molokaʻi<\/span>, Lānaʻi<\/span> and Oʻahu<\/span>, focusing on underserved communities.<\/p>\n

\"dentist<\/p>\n

UH<\/abbr> Maui\u2019s dental hygiene students prepared lessons in the Smiles for Maui program, targeting three Title I<\/abbr> schools. These future dental hygienists brought tooth-brushing kits for school children\u2014toothbrushes, toothbrush covers, toothpaste, floss picks and individual bags for keeping kits together\u2014providing age-appropriate instruction on oral care for daily, dedicated toothbrushing time in school. Follow-up visits by dental hygiene students offered reinforcement for students and troubleshooting for teachers.<\/p>\n

UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Keiki<\/a> program\u2019s mission is to keep keiki healthy and ready to learn by providing access to school nursing services in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s public schools. It recently added oral healthcare services, offering assessments and dental sealants in Title I<\/abbr> Department of Education public schools. Families of participating students received assessment reports, referrals and oral care kits, and students needing urgent care received referrals to community dental service providers.<\/p>\n

HDS<\/abbr> Foundation has generously supported UH<\/abbr>\u2019s oral health outreach efforts since 2002. This long history of partnership has helped to recruit and train dental hygienists to serve our communities while improving access to oral health services for all Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

For more go to the UH<\/abbr> Foundation website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> Maui College and UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa students lead oral health outreach efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[223,167,9,60],"class_list":["post-135259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-dental-hygiene","tag-school-of-nursing-and-dental-hygiene","tag-uh-manoa","tag-maui-college","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135259"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135262,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135259\/revisions\/135262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}