Prior to beginning MHST631, I had a very basic understanding of health promotion from courses taken in my dental hygiene education. However, this course challenged, and changed my knowledge. We have all been taught and agree that health promotion by definition is the process of enabling people to increase control over & improve their health (World Health Organization, 2021). What I learned the most about and found interesting from 631 was learning about differing theories and models of health promotion, it is interesting to learn the ‘behind the scenes of enabling control over health’.
My ePortfolio is still very much a work in progress. I am proud of where it is, but I do think I can add more messages, resources, and content surrounding prevention of ECC. Currently, it is arranged mainly as a tool to share my educational experience throughout my MHST courses. In the coming weeks I hope to adapt a lot of the site to focus more on the content I am sharing about health promotion topics rather than simply adding things as a requirement for each course.
Throughout each course I have focused on early childhood caries, their prevalence, the strain they cause on the pediatric health system. I have specifically focused on how primary care (family physicians, nurse practitioners, and pediatricians) can aid in this prevention by encouraging the CDA and CDHA’s recommendation of first tooth first year visit to the dentist (Canadian Dental Association, 2017). In previous courses I have focused on looking at why primary care does not encourage these recommendations. However, in 631 I have shifted to explore how to improve primary healthcare’s understanding of the severity of ECC, and how to simply implement these recommendations within their clinical practice.
A theory/model I have utilized and found very helpful in 631 was the diffusion of innovation theory (Lamorte, 2019). This relates to the process of getting primary healthcare adopting strategies to better promote first tooth first year dental visit, and how involvement will grow over time. One weakness/limitation of this model is not looking at the multitude of other variables that go into an individual’s life circumstances/reasons to not visit the dentist, such as geographical barriers, work barriers such as a parent having to take time off work to attend appointments, dietary habits/limitations at home, etc. Within this course I hope to have a better understanding of how to account for and acknowledge all the variables that play into an individual’s oral health status.
Canadian Dental Association. (2017). First Visit, First tooth. Retrieved from https://www.firstvisitfirsttooth.ca
LaMorte, W. (2019). Behavioural Change Models: Diffusion of Innovation Theory. https://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/sb/behavioralchangetheories/behavioralchangetheories4.html
World Health Organization (2021). Health promotion glossary of terms 2021. Geneva: World Health Organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1398462/retrieve
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