Early Childhood Caries Treatment Model Undergoes Testing

Early childhood caries (ECC) can severely impact the oral and systemic health of the United States’ most vulnerable children. To help combat this preventable disease, the New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD) has received a $967,000 grant from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to develop a pediatric dental residency program that will focus on the nonsurgical disease management of ECC. The goal of the program is to provide New York children with a dental home that offers a positive, accessible, family-centered environment for health promotion and increased awareness of the importance of oral health.

NYUCD is charged with studying a model designed to use peer counseling and technology assisted behavioral risk reduction strategies to promote oral health. As part of the program, families will receive home visits from community health workers bimonthly for 12 months. Health workers also will visit children with more advanced ECC weekly for the first month of the program. Participants of the project will use a mobile tablet-based program called MySmileBuddy to plan, implement, and monitor oral health behaviors, including dietary analysis and the use of caries prevention interventions.

The funding is part of a larger $4 million grant awarded to Columbia University College of Dental Medicine in New York to redirect children with early and advanced forms of ECC away from expensive surgical treatment to low-cost, nonsurgical treatment of the disease.

From Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. May 2015;13(5):14–15.