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‘Promoting Child Oral Health and Managing Tooth Decay in Preschool Children’

The team from Faculty of Dentistry, Dr Duangporn Duangthip, Professor Chun Hung Chu, Professor Edward Chin Man Lo and Professor Cynthia Kar Yung Yiu received the University’s Knowledge Exchange Excellence Award 2021.

Tooth decay in young children is a public health issue in Hong Kong and also worldwide. The translational research and knowledge exchange (KE) projects conducted in the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Hong Kong in promoting oral health and managing tooth decay in children have achieved significant impacts, including the establishment of a kindergarten-based dental care project, namely the ‘Jockey Club Children Oral Health Project’ funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charity Trust. This is a territory-wide outreach project in which silver diamine fluoride (SDF) is used for controlling tooth decay among the preschool children. Very high participation rate and parental satisfaction is obtained. Studies of the members of this KE Award winning team have shown that SDF is safe, inexpensive and effective in stopping tooth decay. The non-invasive and non-aerosol generating treatment with SDF is suitable for implementation in school setting, leading to a new paradigm for management of tooth decay in children. Besides, their work has influenced the dental profession around the world, such as establishing new clinical guidelines on using SDF in children. They have also worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote the global oral health policy to use SDF for oral health. As a result, for the first time, SDF is included in the dental section of the Model List of Essential Medicines published by the WHO in 2021 which is currently used as a guide by more than 150 countries.

Dr Duangporn Duangthip and team members – Professor Chun Hung Chu, Professor Edward Chin Man Lo, and Professor Cynthia Kar Yung Yiu, Faculty of Dentistry

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