Nuevas Sonrisas: Our model of dental service – Prevention!

Working together using a comprehensive community approach with the same goal: Nuevas Sonrisas dental team is made up of American and Guatemalan dental providers and assistants, educators and other volunteers. Our team is supported by the Santa Catarina Mita Municipality, the local School District, and the regional Health Department. Together, we plan and carry-out yearly week-long dental clinic and education programs in the elementary schools. During the rest of the year, the health department continues prevention and dental education services with consultation and materials supplied by Nuevas Sonrisas. We hope to add Guatemalan dental students as providers in this project.

We work within the community: The municipality makes available a large comfortable community space for our dental clinic. We create a space where children and their families feel safe and comfortable receiving dental services. We encourage involvement from teachers, community members and parents to become our partners in preventing dental decay.

Our Prevention Focus: Our goals are to teach parents and children how to care for teeth using good dental habits and a healthier diet, and to provide educational resources to teachers to use in the classroom. Students receive fluoride twice a year, first during the dental week’s visit, then later in the year by the local health department. In our clinics, we apply sealants and do restorative work and extractions when necessary.  Click here if you would like to learn more about the prevention program goals (fluoride application, classroom and parent education) .

Transferrable Model: Our model of service can be used in other communities, and Nuevas Sonrisas will gladly share our experience from many years of successful community dentistry. Please contact us with any questions – we want to share what we have learned and to learn from you.

Nuevas Sonrisas: Dental Services Provided

Our Treatment Approach for all Children

Our mobile prevention teams visit local elementary schools to apply fluoride varnish on all students’ teeth. They go to each classroom to provide education to teachers and students, and provide dental education to parents. They leave enough toothbrushes and toothpaste to last the school year, and leave educational materials for teachers, so that dental education can continue throughout the year.

Why We Focus on 1st and 6th graders with additional sealant services

By the time they are in the first grade, children in underserved areas such as Santa Caterina Mita typically suffer a lot of decay due to limited dental hygiene and a diet high in sugar. The first grade is also when their first permanent (adult) molars are erupting, making it the perfect time to apply sealants to these molars. Sealing permanent molars is a simple and highly effective preventive treatment because the deep grooves in the back teeth are cleaned and covered to resist decay over a long period of time. Sixth grade children typically have their permanent second molars erupting, requiring an additional sealant application.

First and sixth grades are also opportune times to evaluate dental health, provide restorative care (fillings and extractions) when necessary and possible, and educate the children and their family members about dental hygiene.

Treatment and repair in the clinic

If there is already a small amount of decay present in the child’s teeth, dentists are usually able to remove the infected part and place fillings to prevent further damage to the tooth. We use materials such as silver amalgam for the back teeth or tooth-colored materials such as composite resin or glass ionomer. We give priority to filling permanent teeth over primary teeth. If the decay has progressed to the nerve of the tooth or the tooth is no longer able to be restored with a filling, we obtain permission from the parent, then extract the tooth to remove the infection.

We triage and provide emergency dental care when necessary to all children and occasionally to parents or teachers.

Outcome Measures

We collect data to track the oral health of individual children and to evaluate the success of our program in improving oral health in the school population. We gather information in our clinic with a scoring system that records the number of teeth that have decay, are missing or filled. We record the treatments we complete on each child. Please see our outcome data page on this site.