CHILD-LINK: Child oral Health Improvement utiLising Data LINKage

Background
Tooth decay is one of the most common childhood diseases in the world. Over one in five 5-year-olds have tooth decay in England. However, there is a huge disparity between children that develop tooth decay and those that don’t. In Bradford, one in three children have decay in at least one baby tooth. Decay affects a child’s quality of life including disruption to eating, sleeping, and schooling, and has significant consequences for the child, family, and wider community. Treatment of dental decay is the most common reason for a young child to have a general anaesthetic and costs the NHS £60 million in hospital treatment, alone.

Preventing tooth decay and addressing dental health inequalities is a key national priority. Although protective factors such as toothbrushing, a low sugar diet, and going to the dentist regularly helps reduce a child’s risk of tooth decay, we are becoming aware of the importance of wider factors in a child’s environment that can influence why a child might develop tooth decay and why there are dental health disparities. Having a better understanding of this will help when designing interventions to improve dental health.

Aim
CHILD-LINK: Child oral Health Improvement utiLising Data LINKage

We want to explore why some children get tooth decay and why some don’t. We also want to identify barriers in accessing dental care. We want to use this information to design the best possible interventions to stop children developing decay in early life, before it becomes a problem.

Research Design
To begin, I will summarise the current available evidence, to categorise important wider factors in tooth decay development, how this impacts effectiveness of dental health interventions, and identify research gaps.

The focus of the project will centre on children’s dental records. Every time a child visits a dentist, their dentist sends a summary record to an NHS organisation called the NHS Business Service Authority. This record contains information about the child’s dental condition, presence of tooth decay and dental treatment. We want to link the records with the participants of the Born in Bradford (BiB) birth study. The rich data held by BiB gives the opportunity to identify root causes of oral health inequalities. Although parents can struggle to register their children at an NHS dentist, linking the data with the birth cohort means we can develop a picture of children not attending the dentist, which will help to identify barriers to access.

The final part of the project will involve engaging with the public, patients and key organisations involved in oral health interventions, to co-develop a set of recommendations to improve the targeting and effectiveness of tooth decay prevention schemes.

Outcomes
Results from the study will be tailored for different groups of people likely to use them. We will use different ways of presenting the information, social media, conference presentations, journal articles, co-produced information resources, and a face-to-face meeting for the public and professional organisations.