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Objectives: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index for Maxillary Incisors (OHI-MIS) is a novel plaque scoring system adapted for young children. This study describes calibration training and testing used to establish the inter- and intra-rater reliability for OHI-MIS measured from clinical photographs., Methods: Two raters from the Coordinated Oral Health Promotion Chicago (CO-OP) and one from the Behavioral EConomics for Oral health iNnovation (BEECON) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) underwent calibration with gold standard raters, followed by annual re-calibration. Raters from CO-OP also completed inter-rater reliability testing; all three raters completed intra-rater reliability testing rounds. Photographs were obtained from children aged 9-39 months., Results: All three raters achieved greater than 0.77 Lin's Concordance Correlation (LCC) versus gold standard consensus during calibration. All three raters had LCC ≥0.83 at recalibration 1 year later. CO-OP trial raters scored 604 photos (151 sets of 4 photographs); mostly both raters were somewhat/very confident in their scoring (≥89%), describing the most photos as "clear" (90% and 81%). The CO-OP inter-rater LCC for total OHI-MIS score was 0.86, changing little when low quality or confidence photos were removed. All three raters demonstrated high intra-rater reliability (≥0.83)., Conclusions: The OHI-MIS plaque scoring system on photos had good reliability within and between trials following protocol training and calibration. OHI-MIS provides a novel asynchronous plaque scoring system for use in young children. Non-clinicians in field or clinical settings can obtain photographs, offering new opportunities for research and clinical care., (© 2023 American Association of Public Health Dentistry.)

Objectives: We conducted a study among pediatric renal (RTRs) and liver transplant recipients (LTRs) to determine: a) the overall burden of oral disease; and b) the frequency with which this population utilizes dental care services in relation to sociodemographic factors and oral disease burden., Methods: In this cross-sectional survey, study procedures included the completion of a standardized questionnaire (by parents/guardians), oral mucosal examination, assessment of caries, gingival enlargement, and plaque index., Results: The 142 children (82 RTRs and 60 LTRs) enrolled from April 2002 to November 2005 were predominantly Latino (41 percent) and Caucasian (34 percent). Forty-three percent had at least one carious surface (in either a deciduous or permanent tooth), 19 percent had five or more carious surfaces, and 25 percent had gingival enlargement. We found only one case of oral candidiasis. Even though 72 percent of parents/guardians reported their child had a regular source of dental care, only 49 percent had a dental cleaning and 44 percent had dental radiographs in the past year, reflecting a low prevalence of preventive dental care. Among children with no regular source of dental care, there were statistically significantly higher proportions of Latinos, younger children, and families with an annual household income <$35,000., Conclusion: While the prevalence of oral mucosal disease and gingival enlargement was low, the prevalence of children with caries was high, and there was low use of preventive dental care. Strategies to improve this population's utilization of preventive dental care are needed.

Objectives: This paper explores the role of race/ethnicity in the occurrence of early childhood caries (ECC) among California Head Start (HS) and non-HS preschool children., Methods: Using oral examination and questionnaire data from the 1993-94 California Oral Health Needs Assessment of Children, we computed the prevalence of ECC using various definitions and fitted logistic regression models to explore the effect of race/ethnicity on ECC, separately for HS and non-HS children, adjusting for bedtime feeding habits and other covariates., Results: Among 2,520 children, the largest proportion with a history of falling asleep sipping milk/sweet substance was among Latinos/Hispanics (72% among HS and 65% among non-HS) and HS Asians (56%). HS Asians and Latinos/Hispanics had the largest prevalence of ECC (30%-33%) and untreated caries (49%-54%). The estimated risk for ECC was more than three times higher in HS Asians compared to HS whites and among non-HS African Americans and Asians compared to non-HS whites controlling for socioeconomic status variables. The risk of ECC was also significantly higher among children who fell asleep while sipping milk or any sweet substance compared to those who did not., Conclusion: Studies of the cultural/behavioral patterns that may be specific to ethnic subgroups with the highest risk for ECC seem essential to the development of effective prevention strategies.