Lights, cameras, toothbrushes, please

ccccdental062: Dental Health PSAs
Four-year-old Ethan Benham appears more than eager to let dental hygienist Esmeralda Garza count his teeth on the first visit to a dentist.
If the media is the message, then TV may soon be bringing smiles to the faces of many young children, thanks to the plans of the Community Connection for Child Care (CCCC) Foundation, Kern County Children's Dental Health Network and Kern Education Television Network, operated by the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. CCCC got the ball rolling in December 2005, when it applied for and received a grant from the American Dental Association (ADA) Harris Fund to support the production of two Public Service Announcements (PSAs) in English and Spanish to be aired on local television stations in Kern County.

What the PSAs will deal with is simple yet vitally important to preventing tooth decay -- encouraging parents and their children to use fluoride, brush and floss their teeth daily and have regular dental check-ups.

"Kern does not have fluoridated water and there are alarming County statistics on tooth decay," said Brooke Antonioni, Child and Family Services facilitator and executive producer for the TV twin productions. "Here in Kern, tooth decay is one of the most prevalent chronic illnesses facing Kern County's young children. Although largely preventable, the rate of tooth decay in Kern's preschool children is estimated at 55 percent compared to 34 percent statewide."

Shot entirely on location in the Kern County dental offices of Dr. Joseph M. Nunez and Dr. Daniel Purdy, the PSAs feature a family-geared narrative about the necessity and advantages of using fluoride combined with frequent dental checkups. Esmeralda Garza, an actual, working, bilingual dental hygienist with Taft College, comes across as friendly and knowledgeable, as the narrator and on camera advocate in both PSAs. Viewers will see children, unfrightened by the experience of visiting the dentist for the first time, smiling as they look at X-rays, count teeth with a dentist and share a tooth brushing experience with a puppet.

"When you see smiling, happy children at that young age having such a good time, it will spread the message to our targeted family audience that the first visit to the dentist can be a fun experience, not a traumatic one," said John Lenko, KETN production manager and director of the production.

None of the partners in this production are new to the needs of Kern County children. The Dental Network, operated through the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, and the Taft College Dental Hygiene Program have collaborated for a number of years bringing free dental services to preschool children at school sites throughout Kern County. KETN has often been the communications outlet for producing public service projects designed by CCCC.

"The partners on this project teamed up to produce these educational tools, due to the fact that children with chronic dental pain also may not always voice their problem and without proper care, a painful tooth can lead to difficulty in eating and speaking," Antonioni said. "Children with extensive tooth decay can also find it difficult, if not impossible, to regularly attend school and learn and perform at high levels."

Through painstaking data collection and research, based on the service it has provided in the past, the Dental Health Network documented why there is a need for continued collaboration, as follows:

  • Parents value good oral health
  • Parents do not know how to check their children for cavities and about fluoride sources
  • Other problem areas include putting babies to bed with a bottle filled with liquids other than water, the low number of parents taking their child to a dentist, limited access to care and parents reporting they cannot find dentist.
Shot in three days, the videos feature the children of six local families. Antonioni and Lenko say county viewers can look for the finished PSAs to start appearing on local TV stations sometime in August.


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