Certain captive population groups are targeted for tailored oral health promotion programmes. These programmes are characterized by being age and setting specific. They have clear objectives and performance targets that measure either oral health gain or desirable behavioural changes.

"Brighter Smiles for the New Generation" Programme

"Brighter Smiles for the New Generation" Programme is targeted at children aged under 6 studying in the local kindergartens and nurseries. The Programme aims to help children establish good toothbrushing and smart diet habits for the prevention of dental diseases. The objectives are i) to increase the percentage of children brushing their teeth with children's toothpaste twice daily , ii) to increase the percentage of parents providing supplementary toothbrushing for their children every evening and iii) to increase the percentage of children snack no more than once between meals. Past programmes have been evaluated to demonstrate statistically significant increase in objectives i) and ii).

The participating schools are given education materials by the OHEU. These materials include a teacher's manual for every teacher, a student handbook, a cartoon DVD and an age-appropriated picture book for every child in the school, and some posters for the schools to promote the Programme. Having acquired these materials, the schools designate a 6-week period to conduct the toothbrushing activity school-wide. The children are encouraged to watch the cartoon story in the DVD and follow the instructions in the DVD to participate in the activity. They are required to have the parent check their toothbrushing, including the supplementary toothbrushing habits and snacks habit at home, and sign off in the handbook everyday. Should the children's performance meet the expected levels of requirement, they are awarded with stickers and certificates accordingly. There are three types of awards: Self Care Award for the child's independent effort, Love Kids Award for the parent's supplementary toothbrushing effort and the Smart Diet Award for the child's discipline on snacks. These awards positively reinforce the children's good behaviour, as an incentive to sustain their oral care habits that have been formed over the 6-week activity period.

The entire Programme is supported by voluntary participation of the children, the parents and the teachers. Nonetheless, we have consistently over 600 schools with around 100,000 children participating every year. Positive feedback from parents appraising that the Programme has been successful in helping children establish a good toothbrushing habit is often received.

The Bright Smiles Campus Programme

The Bright Smiles Campus Programme is a school-based oral health promotion programme for primary school students. It is newly launched in 2009-10. It aims to empower the students to improve the cleanliness of their teeth. Its objective is to increase the percentage of children with cleaner teeth, i.e. less tooth surfaces with presence of dental plaque.

The Programme is implemented through the participating schools. The schools nominate senior grade students (P.4-6) to be trained as Bright Smiles Ambassadors. A half-day leadership training workshop is given to equip the Ambassadors with presentation skill and basic oral care techniques. These Ambassadors will be commissioned to teach and cheer the junior grade students in proper oral care. A Cheering Card marks a personal link between the Ambassador and his junior peer. Personal encouragement / appreciation flow between them throughout the school year. Additionally, the participating school organises the Ambassadors to propose, implement and report on an oral health promotion activity in school. At the end of the school year, the Ambassadors submit a Reflection Statement and the schools present their oral health activity reports, which are shared at an Appreciation Ceremony.

The Bright Smiles Campus programme provides an interactive caring platform in the school, for the senior students to build kind relationships with the juniors. As a result, the school will effectively be filled of Bright Smiles and Loving Hearts.

The Bright Smiles Ambassadors will improve their oral care skills and communication skills with peers. While motivated by warmth and love, the junior students will care to clean their teeth well so as to improve their oral health.

Teens Teeth Programme

The Teens Teeth is a school-based programme employing a peer-led approach in promotion of oral health to the F.1 students. Its objectives are to i) reduce the condition of gingival bleeding ii) improve their flossing habit in the intervention students.

The participating school sends ten F.4 students to be trained as peer leaders. After having undergone a week-long leadership training, they are commissioned to promote oral health to all the F.1 students in the school. They are required to organize any activities to achieve the objectives of the Teens Teeth Programme within the academic year. Throughout the year, they are supported emotionally by the peer mentors who are the ex-peer leaders and professionally by the dentist mentors who are volunteer private dental practitioners. The OHEU, however, provides material support.

A randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2005-06 on five pairs of intervention and control schools with sampled F.1 students to test the effectiveness of the Teens Teeth Programme. Comparing to the control schools, the results showed that the gingival condition of the students of test schools had been improved.

As the success of the Programme demands intensive provision for the peer leaders, it cannot be implemented on a massive scale. There are around eighty F.4 students from eight schools could be served with the current resources. Nonetheless, experience with the past five batches of peer leaders shows that they have been thoroughly committed to the promotion of oral health to the people around them ever since the one-year commission. The number of people who will benefit from these life-long promoters is probably immeasurable.

Dandelion Oral Care Action

The Dandelion Oral Care Action is an oral health promotion programme for the mild and moderate intellectual disabled children in the special schools. It is a school programme based on the systematic toothbrushing and flossing techniques developed in collaboration with a special school for the moderate intellectual disabled children in 2004-05 academic year.

The systematic toothbrushing technique is easy for the special children to learn and easy for the teachers to teach. The entire toothbrushing process is broken down into many small and achievable steps, which are grouped into 5 stages with 36 groups of teeth to brush.. For dental flossing, the flossing of two approximal surfaces in the same interdental space is considered one group. The children are taught the technique by Stages and by groups. They are required to be proficient with what they have already learned before they progress to the next group or stage. They must acquire the toothbrushing skill fully before they learn the flossing technique. Both techniques are taught to and learned by all the teachers, parents and children in the school to create a supporting environment for the children to master the skill.

The Dandelion Programme objectives are defined with short term and long term goals. It is targeted to reduce the visible plaque or the bacterial film, accumulated on the children's teeth in the short term of one to two years. The long term goal is for the child who has been through the entire schooling of 12 years. He is expected to be able to brush and floss his own teeth competently and independently by the time he leaves school.

The Programme is implemented in a train-the-trainer approach. The OHEU trains the school nurse and at least one teacher from each school to be the Oral Health Trainers (OHT). The OHTs learn some basic oral care knowledge and the two oral care techniques, which are practiced on the manikin first, then on the children until they have fully mastered the skills. They, in turn, train all the teachers in the school in the same manner. They also conduct workshops to train the parents, who are expected to brush twice a day and floss once daily for their children at home using the same techniques.

The Programme was successfully launched and adopted in all special schools with moderate intellectual disabled children in 2005-07. Oral Health Trainers have been trained. The oral care skill has become part of the self-care curriculum of the schools. The parents who participated on voluntary basis have found their toothbrushing and flossing skills for their children improved. Then in 2007-08, it was launched in schools with mild and moderate intellectual disabled children. Currently, all the 20 schools in Hong Kong subscribe the Dandelion Programme. Systematic evaluation for the achievement of objectives will begin in 2008-09. Various evaluation parameters will be measured annually or bi-annually over the next 12 years.

Love Teeth Campaigns

Since 2003, the OHEU has launched annual Love Teeth Campaigns with a specific theme every year. The Campaigns employs a media publicity approach to strategically reach the non-captive adult population, which composes of half of the people of Hong Kong. Specific thematic messages are typically delivered through TV commercials, TV programmes, MTR posters, newspapers, radio programmes…etc. Sometimes, a joint promotion programme with the dental profession or a community organization is organized as part of the campaign publicity.

Telephone survey evaluations show that there has been a slow but steady increase in the number of people taking up the flossing and dental check-up/professional teeth cleaning habits over the years. Though the awareness of periodontal disease was raised but the awareness of specific knowledge about the disease fluctuated with the forcefulness of the messages given.