Nigeria's street children, epitome of oral health disparity and inequality.

INTRODUCTION: it has been close to four years since the authors highlighted the total neglect of the oral health of street children in the Journal of Public Health Policy. Since then, the authorities appear to have simply turned the blind eye making this follow-up imperative. This follow-up report specifically examines the resultant oral health disparity between Nigeria's street children and Private, fee-paying secondary school students in Northern Nigeria. METHODS: we conducted a cross-sectional comparative survey of randomly selected 12-14 years old street children (children of Quranic informal educational institutions) in Northern Nigeria while fee paying, private secondary school children served as controls. A simple close-ended questionnaire translated into Hausa language was used to assess oral health knowledge and the Simplified Oral Hygiene Index used to categorize oral hygiene status of the participants. RESULTS: the mean age (SD) of the participating street children was 12.7 (0.86) while that of the private secondary school students (PSSS) was 13.05 (0.96). The majority (89%) of parents of street children compared with that (7%) of parents of students of private secondary schools had no western education. Only 6% of street children compared with 90% of PSSS cleaned their teeth for the right reasons. Only 5% of street children compared with 90% of private secondary school students used a fluoride-containing toothpaste. Though both groups of children have poor knowledge (street children 3%, private secondary school students 16%) on the use of dental floss, the mean oral hygiene score (SD) for street children was 4.42 (0.85) compared with 1.90 (0.09) for private secondary school students. There were striking differences in knowledge and practice with only 4% of street children compared with 69% of PSSS with knowledge about fluoride and its use (p < 0.0005). Also, 2% of street children compared with 40% of PSSS were aware of the benefits of regular dental visits. Sixty five (65%) of street children used finger and water only for tooth cleaning, none of the secondary school students practiced this (p = 0.0005). CONCLUSION: there is disparity in oral health practice between Nigeria's street children and private secondary school children. This disparity may be attributed to lack of western education and socio-economic status.

Tooth loss awareness and reasons for non-replacement of missing teeth among nurses at Jos University Teaching Hospital, Jos, Nigeria

Objective: Full complement and replacement of lost teeth improves oral health and quality of life. The objective of this study was to assess the level of awareness of factors that can prevent premature loss of teeth and the reason for non-replacement of missing/lost teeth among nurses in a tertiary health institution. Methods: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study, 251 nurses of the Jos University Teaching Hospital participated. Self-administered questionnaires were used for data collection. Analysis of data was done with IBM SPSS version 23.0. Results: The mean age of the 251 nurses was 38±9.88. 174(69.3%) were females while 77(30.7%) were males. Out of 91(36.3%) that had missing teeth, 16(17.6%) actually replaced their missing teeth with the majority of them representing 81.3% adopting removable acrylic partial denture as modality. Among the 75(82.4%) that did not replace their missing teeth, the reason for the non-replacement by the majority- 40.0% was that they didn't feel replacement was necessary. Conclusion: The awareness level on factors that can prevent premature loss of teeth was observed to be high among the participants, but many have missing teeth that needed replacement. Majority did not replace their missing teeth as a result of low level of awareness of the consequences and probably due to financial challenges and because of the non-coverage of prosthetic treatments by the National Health Insurance Scheme 'NHIS' in Nigeria

Oral health knowledge and practice of 12 to 14-year-old Almajaris in Nigeria: A problem of definition and a call to action.

We studied oral health knowledge and practices of 12 to 14-year-old Almajiri boys in northern Nigeria because we found few studies on their health, and none on their oral health. We present our study after explaining the desperate life circumstances and context of Nigeria's approximately 10 million Almajiri youth. Our results, when compared with those of previously studied populations (those most similar in terms of environment, age range, and oral health characteristics) show that the Almajiris fare poorly. Although the international community has paid some attention to the Nigerian Almajiri children's educational needs, there has been little support for health, and none for oral health. We argue that the World Health Organization could better assist Nigeria and these children by assuring that the Almajiris are not excluded from programs targeting children classified as 'street children', and make specific recommendations.