Wednesday 19 February 2014

Oral health in School children and Youth

Important target groups

School children and Youth

Oral health through health promoting schools

WHO's Global School Health Initiative, launched in 1995, seeks to mobilize and strengthen health promotion and education activities at local, national, regional and global levels. The initiative is designed to improve the health of children, school personnel, families and other members of the community through schools. The Health Promoting School can be characterized as a school constantly strengthening its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working. The WHO Global School Health Initiative consists of four broad strategies:
  • Building capacity to advocate for improved school health programmes.
  • Creating networks and alliances for the development of Health Promoting Schools.
  • Strengthening national capacity.
  • Research to improve school health programmes. 

To help individuals and groups advocate the development of Health Promoting Schools, WHO has produced an "Information Series on School Health". Guidelines are given on how to assist school and community leaders to improve the health and education of young people, and individual documents in the Series encourage schools to address one or more important health issues.
The WHO Oral Health Programme has prepared an oral health technical document to strengthen the implementation of an oral health component of the Health Promoting Schools programme. Strong arguments for oral health promotion through schools are for example:
  • Pupils and students can be accessed during their formative years, from childhood to adolescence. These are important stages in people's lives when lifelong oral health related behaviour as well as beliefs and attitudes are being developed.
  • The schools can provide a supportive environment for promoting oral health. Access to safe water, for example, may allow for general and oral hygiene programmes. Also, a safe physical environment in schools can help reduce the risk of accidents and concomitant dental trauma.
  • The burden of oral disease in children is significant. Most established oral diseases are irreversible, will last for a lifetime and have impact on quality of life and general health.
  • School policies, the physical environment and education for health are essential for attainment of oral health and control of risk behaviours, such as intake of sugary foods and drinks, tobacco use and alcohol consumption.
  • Schools can provide a platform for provision of oral health care, i.e. preventive and curative services. 

Through an extensive Health Promoting Schools network, WHO works at global and regional levels with Education International, UNAIDS and UNESCO to enable teachers' representative organizations throughout the world to use their capacities and experiences to improve health through schools. The WHO Oral Health Programme links up to those networks in addition to school oral health networks established across countries and regions.
Training-of-trainers programmes for schoolteachers are conducted to increase national capacities in relation to the integration of oral health promotion in schools. As part of the development of WHO's Mega-Countries Health Promotion network, the WHO Oral Health Programme encourages exchange of good practice among persons responsible for school health and health promotion in countries with the world's largest populations.

Oral health of youth

WHO compiles and consolidates research on interventions that can improve health through schools in order to build capacity at national level and to monitor the health status of children and teachers. The WHO Oral Health Programme has developed methodologies for process and outcome evaluation of school oral health programmes in order to strengthen the implementation of such programmes, and the WHO Collaborating Centres on Oral Health. 

One fifth of the world’s population is adolescent, defined by WHO as a person between 10 and 19 years of age. A young person with high self-esteem and good social skills who is clear about her/his values and has access to relevant information is likely to make positive decisions about health. External factors have a tremendous impact on how adolescents think and behave; the values and behaviours of their peers are increasingly important while parents and other family members continue to be influential. Factors within the wider environment are also significant (e.g. mass media, industries, community institutions). Programmes aimed at improving the oral health of youth need to take these factors into account, for example, in relation to consumption of sweets, sugary beverages, tobacco and alcohol. Effective alliances of the home, schools, oral health professionals and community organizations are needed in order to control risks to oral health in young people. 

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Trinity Care Foundation is a Non Governmental Organization focusing on Craniofacial Surgeries, School Health Programs and Outreach Health Programs in Karnataka, India.

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Sunday 16 February 2014

Tricky Teenage Subjects: Effective Adolescent Health Education

Health education is an absolutely vital factor in long-term health, as well as the health of future generations. Educating children about health can be as simple as teaching them about basic hygiene, such as the washing of hands after going to the toilet or how to brush one’s teeth effectively. However, some health education involves more complex subjects, such as drug abuse or HIV; topics which need especial attention when dealing with older children and young adolescents. These health risks are among the biggest threats facing our youth, and school health programmes are one of the most effective ways to positively impact on long-term public health goals, according to the World Health Organisation.


HIV and AIDS

Because of breakthroughs in treatment options, HIV and AIDS are no longer in every headline, unlike only a few short years ago. While this can make it harder to impress upon students how serious the impact of the virus can be, it is nonetheless essential to convey the message effectively. Despite the fact that many associate the virus with intravenous drug use and homosexual intercourse – and while these are risk factors in transmission of HIV – 88.2% of transmission cases in 2011-2012 were via heterosexual intercourse. Nearly 200,00 HIV-related deaths were reported in 2011-2012, and more than 120,000 new cases of infection were recorded. Education about safe sexual practices, the relationship between HIV transmission and drug use, the availability of health services such as HIV testing and free condoms is vital to protect teenagers against this disease.

Drug and Alcohol Abuse

For many teenagers, drug abuse is an easy trap to fall into. Many children grow up seeing various types of substance abuse in their communities, and have not been educated sufficiently about the dangers of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. The easy availability of cheap “poppers” like aerosol inhalants, and the lax attitude of some retailers towards selling alcohol and tobacco to minors, make the dangers of substance abuse all the more prevalent and damaging. According to the World Health Organisation, alcohol is responsible for approximately 2.5 million deaths every year, which is nearly 4% of deaths worldwide. In India, alcohol-related deaths are on the rise, with 5,478 deaths caused by alcohol in 2012, 21% more than the 4547 cases in 2011. Traffic accidents are a primary cause of alcohol-related deaths, along with liver and brain complications. Toxic or contaminated home-made alcohol is also responsible for deaths from poisoning. Drug abuse is also highly prevalent; according to the World Health Organisation, there are as many as a million known heroin addicts in India, with an estimated further four million who are not registered in treatment programmes. Heroin,cannabis, and Indian-produced pharmaceutical drugs are the most commonly abused drugs. Although teenagers can be inclined to think of experimenting with substances as fun and exciting, it is important to impress upon them not only the dangers of substance abuse, but also to teach them how to recognize the signs of substance abuse in themselves and their peers, and how to seek help.

Sexual Safety


Sexual Safety extends much further than worrying about HIV and AIDS, and includes the risks of other sexually transmitted infections, as well as the risks of teen pregnancy. India, where many girls are married before the age of 19, has a very high rate of teenage pregnancy, which results in a loss of education for women, as well as physical health risks. Adolescent girls under the age of 16 who fall pregnant are four times as likely to die than women in their twenties, while the infant mortality rates of teenage pregnancies are approximately 50% higher than the rates of older women, according to the World Health Organisation. While the cultural aspect of young marriage is not something to be addressed in a health class, the health risks of unintended or young pregnancy are, and educating both young women and men about reproductive health is one of the most effective ways to begin to turn the tide. Additionally, the problem of sexual violence is an important one, and while girls are often taught to try to avoid situations in which they could encounter rape and other forms of sexual violence, it is important to impress upon adolescent boys, too, that these crimes hold severe consequences for them. 


Trinity Care Foundation is a Non Governmental Organization focusing on Craniofacial Surgeries, School Health Programs and Outreach Health Programs in Karnataka, India.

You Would love to Partner or Volunteer with Trinity Care Foundation, Write to us :-