211 - Educating Families about Oral Health Through Video Storytelling

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of an oral health education video featuring community health workers (CHWs) in educating parents about oral health and caries prevention through peer storytelling.

Methods: English-speaking parents of children ages 0-16 that presented to the Columbia University Irving Medical Center Pediatric Dentistry Clinic for routine dental care were recruited. Following consent, parents completed a 37-item survey to assess current oral health knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. Following the initial survey parents were shown the 5-minute oral health intervention video featuring CHWs talking about caries directly to parents. Participants then completed a post-survey immediately following the video and again 4-6 weeks after the child’s dental visit to assess long-term knowledge retention.

Results: A total of 45 parents were recruited, watched the video in-office and completed all three surveys. Analyses are currently pending.

Conclusions: Video storytelling by CHWs may provide an effective means of providing peer-to-peer oral health education to parents of young children. Findings may be used to inform future interventions that utilize this novel means of parent education.