Search

This article discusses the historical shifts between the treatment-oriented, instructional and primary preventive approaches to oral health promotion, especially in school-based programs in New Zealand and Australia. While in the past much effort has been put into treatment-oriented and instructional programs, their impact has been limited. Among those primary preventive activities that have demonstrated clear benefits are various types of fluoridation and adhesive sealants for the occlusal surfaces of teeth. Further emphasis on primary prevention over treatment is needed to better insure the success of school-based oral health promotion programs. In addition, more effort needs to be put into policy direction, linkages within the educational system, planning, and evaluation.

Concern has been expressed about the level of sugars in baby foods. It has been suggested that high levels of sucrose consumption during infancy and early childhood have been related not only to direct deleterious effects on health and teeth but also to the acquisition of taste patterns which lead to established sweet preferences in later life. This study was undertaken to determine the sugar content of a variety of commercially available New Zealand infant food using the para-hydroxybenzoic acid hydrazide colorimetric reaction. Twenty-eight different foods were assayed, and five baby desserts studied in detail. All infant desserts contained sucrose. Estimates of the total sugar content of desserts ranged from 16 to 47 percent. Sucrose levels varied from less than 1, to 23 percent. The level of sugars in commercial baby foods appeared unnecessarily high. It is suggested that New Zealand manufacturers seriously examine the need to add sucrose to such products.

Dental health education attempts to change behaviour by altering an individual's knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about health matters. Perception of vulnerability to illness and dental disease is a central, but poorly understood, health belief. In this study of 303 New Zealand and 297 Australian schoolchildren perceived vulnerability was measured by the degree of expectancy to which subjects believed they would contract health problems. The pattern of health problem expectancy was consistent across age groups, cultures, and other demographic divisions. High expectancies of general health problems and dental caries were associated with potential preventive dental visits and with potential denture wearing. New Zealand schoolchildren, and children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, had higher expectancies of general health problems and dental caries than Australian or middle class children.

This study compared the oral health status of 600 6-16-yr-old young persons: 297 from Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia (an area of recent water fluoridation and a predominantly marketplace delivery system) and 303 from Dunedin, New Zealand (an area with established water fluoridation and a long-standing school based public delivery system). A greater proportion of Heidelberg subjects, in each of three age groups, were caries free. Level of dental plaque varied both with study area and with age group. Dunedin subjects in the younger age groups had lower mean levels of plaque than their Heidelberg peers. The New Zealand dental service delivery system was consistently closer, in each age group, to meeting defined dental needs than the Australian system. The similarities and contrasts between this study and the WHO-ICS illustrate the importance for planners to consider carefully differences in local conditions which may affect service and morbidity projections.