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Differences In Dental Health

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At the beginning of the 20th century, children dental caries flood raised the concern about the children dental health, which had led to the establishment of the first rudimentary School Dental Schemes55. As early as 1919, a Melbourne dentist advocated a state dental service that would primarily have educational and other preventive functions. He drew on the concept of the British model of dental dressers for a new Victorian oral hygienist who would provide much of the care under the supervision of a dentist. However in 1923, the Victorian cabinet showed an interest in the New Zealand’s School Dental Scheme and the possibility of training dental nurses to work in the Scheme. In 1930, the NSW government made a similar proposal followed by the …show more content…

Many had questioned the quality of dental services that offered through the SDS, although; research came to clear that area, which reported that “The SDS appears to be even more effective and, one would expect, efficient in creating an excellent preventive and treatment blend within the school environment and in promoting better oral health attitudes and behaviour” 59. Despite all the improvement that have been documented in Australian children dental health over the years, inequalities are continued to appear within child population especially within the indigenous child population. Dental therapist and the scheme itself have been experienced many challenges such as dental therapist education policy and their scope of practice, the nature of services that offered to the school children, the limitation of the offered services to certain age and the eligibility criteria and policy across different jurisdictions55. Despite all these obstacles that SDS had to go through, it considers as one of the successful dental programs when compared to other similar programs around the …show more content…

The school based dental services provides a unique platform for implementation the proper oral health intervention. Research have been documented the benefits of using school based dental services over other programs. All of which had encouraged many countries to implement such programs such as Canada, Singapore, Malaysia and other 63,64. A combination of factors have been found to be the reasons behind the success of school based such as the easy access to large numbers of children in one setting, the ability to examine children in familiar environment, and the involvement of teachers and school staffs in the oral health education and promotion programs 63. On the other side, developing countries such as Iraq are trying to develop a similar program to offer free dental services to schoolchildren. Many obstacles could face the implementation of such programs in Iraq, which can be overcome easily with a proper planning and wise utilising of the national

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