Grant: Team Grant: Pathways IRT - Component 2 - Oral Health

Early Childhood Caries (ECC), or tooth decay in baby teeth, is a serious burden on Aboriginal communities across Canada. Most ECC cases are severe and require teeth extractions or fillings under general anesthesia (GA), forcing families to seek specialty treatment in hospitals, often a plane flight away. Culturally appropriate preventive interventions promise to be effective and cheaper in reducing ECC rates and the need for dental surgery under GA. The study's primary aim is to work collaboratively with on- and off-reserve Aboriginal communities in Ontario and Manitoba to strengthen the effectiveness and scalability of a multi-pronged ECC preventive intervention through community-informed enhancements/adaptations. The intervention includes oral health Anticipatory Guidance (AG), delivered to mothers by trained community-based researchers using Motivational Interviewing (MI), and fluoride varnish treatments for their infants and toddlers. The intervention enhancements will be developed by the communities in an initial, qualitative phase of the study. Qualitative phase results will then inform a second, quantitative phase when these new elements are placed into an experimental trial with a larger sample. The idea is that these enhancements will improve the existing multi-pronged approach, grounded as they are in the experiences of community participants. Knowledge Sharing Learning Circles will develop community relevant outcome measures for mothers and their children that fully synergize with local ways of knowing, so that effectiveness/scalability is measured through the lens of the community. The third and final phase of the project will report on the outcomes and impact of the community-enhanced oral health approach. Using a mixed methods exploratory sequential design, researchers and community partners will combine a range of intervention enhancements to reduce ECC and bring about tangible improvements in Aboriginal children's oral health and wellbeing.