Communicating with Your Target Population

Weltee Wolo

Rasmussen College

Author Note

This paper is being submitted on November 05, 2017 Nichole Crais’s

Healthcare Management Capstone H490/HSA4922 course

Strategic plan on how to deal with the oral and dental problems among children

The main objective of this strategic plan is to help in the prevention and curing of oral and dental problems that has affected many children in the community. The paper provides several suggestions on how to deal with the rising cases of oral and dental problems among the children in the community. Some of the suggestions include;

Fluoridation of the community and school drinking water

Fluoridation of water will help in reducing the incidences of dental carries among the children. It will also reverse or even slow down the progression of any existing dental carries that the children have (Bagramian, Gracia-Godoy, & Volpe, 2009). I suggest the use of fluoride because it contains a very high affinity for calcium. Fluoride has the ability of inhibiting or even reversing any progression or initiation of the dental caries. It fights the bacteria which causes dental plaque.

Dental literacy for the healthcare practitioners

One of the challenges of promoting oral and dental health among the children is the lack of literacy from the various health care providers. Most of the oral health care providers do not have enough knowledge on the causes of oral and dental problems (Marsh & Zaura, 2017). They also lack literacy on how to effectively prevent such problems even before they occur and start spreading further. It is very worrying because these same health care providers are the ones who should help in policy making on how to deal with the problems. The dental and oral health care in the area will have to undergo training on to gain deeper understanding about the root cause of these problems and also get to know how to fight and prevent the problems instead of just replacing the teeth of their patients with artificial ones. If they literate enough, they will be able to help the community and achieve the desired results of preventing and treating the oral and dental problems among the children.

Community Awareness

The community must also be educated on the importance of having good oral and dental health. The community should be educated on the importance of fluoridation of water. Community oral health outreach programmes will be established to encourage the active participation which will lead to better oral health. We will also develop a health care dental and oral school where the community members will be coming to get educated on how to maintain their dental and oral health.

References

Marsh, P. D., & Zaura, E. (2017). Dental biofilm: ecological interactions in health and disease. Journal of Clinical Periodontology, 44(S18).

Bagramian, R. A., Garcia-Godoy, F., & Volpe, A. R. (2009). The global increase in dental caries. A pending public health crisis. Am J Dent, 22(1), 3-8.