DENTAL HEALTH BRINGS A SMILE TO MIGRANT CHILDREN

Oral health is ever-present in our daily lives, in our every action: smile, talk, eat, or sing. In the KidStrong personal hygiene and health education, we make sure students start caring for their dental hygiene at a young age. In addition to promoting health awareness, with support from Shanghai Ren’Ai Hospital, KidStrong program provides free dental check-ups and covers dental treatment fees for migrant children.

From April to May,  dentists from Ren’Ai Hospital and KidStrong staff started personally delivering dental check-ups to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders from five schools. Due to limited resources,  KidStrong only provides free dental treatments to the fifth graders. For the third and fourth graders, KidStrong gives check-up results to students’ parents, and encourages the parents to take their children to legally registered dental clinics for dental treatments.  In late May, the fifth graders received dental treatments at Re’ai Hospital.  At the same time, 27 students  who had had eye examinations last year with complex eye problems received re-examinations in Ren’ai. The re-examinations showed that some students’ eye problems had been controlled or partly solved.  Students whose eye conditions had changed would receive new eyeglasses shortly. Furthermore, KidStrong held meetings with the students parents at our five partner schools to provide further information on dental hygiene. We hope parents will emphasize the importance of dental health to their children.

In total, out of the 2,258 students from Maqiao, Jinde, Changlin, Shouchun and Limin migrant schools who received dental check-ups, 1,672 students had cavities. On top of this, 410 out of 455 fifth graders with dental problems received treatment. The students with more severe cavities will be accompanied by their parents to Ren’ai hospital to receive free root canals using coupons delivered by KidStrong program.

The statistic we have seen this year shows that the ratio of students  with cavities to those without in 2015 (with the cavity rate of 77.71% for third and fourth grade and the rate of 65.75% for fifth grade) is much higher than that in the past years. This alarming statistic attracts our attention; KidStrong will adopt new methods to strengthen  dental hygiene habits for migrant children.