Psychosocial Influences on maternal and Child Oral Health

Understanding the various influences on the oral health of mothers and their children necessitates making sense of factors operating at a number of levels. In turn, the oral health of mothers directly influences that of their children, and that of the children can (in turn) affect the day-to-day lives of the family unit. This presentation considers those various influences and their implications for preventive dentistry and oral health promotion. Three key examples will be used to illustrate the processes: (1) quantitative and qualitative data collected on early childhood caries in the United Arab Emirates will be used to show how cultural and macrosystem influences result in very different oral health for boys and girls; (2) data from a longstanding New Zealand cohort study will demonstrate intergenerational continuity in oral health; and (3) health services research data from New Zealand will be used to show the impact of severe early childhood caries on the family unit.