Improving children's oral health with and through education settings

Poor oral health affects quality of life. It causes pain, sleep disruption, and impacts on speech and confidence. Tooth decay is distributed unequally. Children in deprived areas are two and a half times more likely to have decayed teeth.

National level focus:

• Develop a National Child Oral Health Improvement Strategy Focussing on reducing sugar consumption, optimizing fluoride exposure and increasing access to dental care.
• Reorient Dental Services towards prevention and reform the national dental contract.

Local level focus:

• Maximise early years and education-based interventions and implement oral health components in public health services and school curricula.
• Develop local oral health strategies that deliver interventions that are locally coproduced, based on the needs of local populations and focussed on vulnerable populations.
• Build on approaches trialled in practice, highlighted in this briefing.