oral health awareness C D A J O U R N A L , V O L 4 9 , Nº 12
UCLA-Sesame Street Collaboration To Improve Children’s Oral Health James J. Crall, DDS, ScD; David Cohen; Sofia Polo, MPH; and Sylvia Rusnak, PhD
abstract Background: This paper describes a series of activities through which UCLA and Sesame Street collaborated to develop and use oral health resources as part of a children’s oral health awareness campaign. Methods: Activities included producing five new Sesame Street oral health videos featuring Muppets, supporting a children’s oral health awareness campaign through social media, distributing child and parent educational resources and conducting focus groups of parents, caregivers and oral health professionals to assess their perspectives about children’s oral health, messages and strategies. Results: The awareness campaign exceeded each of six preestablished goals, with the social media campaign generating impressive metrics within a month of the release of the fifth video. The five new videos generated over 687,000 views across UCLA’s More LA Smiles and Sesame Street websites. Conclusions: Resources developed through the UCLA-Sesame Street collaboration for the children’s oral health awareness campaign were accessed by targeted populations at rates that exceeded expectations both during and after the campaign. Practical implications: These new resources are available at no cost via the internet and can contribute to additional efforts aimed at increasing oral health literacy for young children, their parents and caregivers. Keywords: Children; oral health; health literacy; Sesame Street; dental health education
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