Grant: Project Grant

First Nations and Metis Canadians face significant oral health challenges, especially children. This proposal is submitted to continue to work with First Nations and Metis communities in the spirit of Reconciliation to deal with the problem of early childhood caries (ECC) (tooth decay). Past funding from CIHR allowed us to work with four Manitoba communities to tailor the Healthy Smile Happy Child (HSHC) initiative so that it was culturally appropriate. The aims of this application are to: i) add in traditional oral health teaching to the HSHC initiative in new partnering First Nations and Metis communities in Manitoba and ii) introduce the practice of caries risk assessment (CRA) (judging a child's risk for tooth decay) by non-dental healthcare staff as a way to improve access to dental care. HSHC has had success in promoting good early childhood oral health, improving knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours, and preventing ECC. CRA is a promising way to increase access to early childhood dental health assessments and to create dental homes (i.e. clinics where children get ongoing dental care) for children. The main goal of this project is to deal with the problem of ECC experienced by Indigenous children in Manitoba. This will be done in two ways. Objective 1 will add traditional oral health teaching to improve and strengthen the HSHC initiative. We will study changes in parents' attitudes, knowledge and behaviours about ECC and changes in young children's dental health. Objective 2 will study the practice of CRA by non-dental healthcare staff as a way to improve access to dental care. We will study if CRA leads to the successful uptake of this practice, more children receiving dental health assessments, improved access to dental care, and increased the number of children being referred to dental offices to create dental homes for them.