Social practices of oral health in Australian preschool children

这项研究的目的是探讨澳大利亚（土著和非土著）学龄前儿童口腔健康的“社会实践”。我们利用这一新兴理论，不再关注个人和个人行为（以及责任），而是确定和绘制社会实践：家庭赋予的行动、材料和意义。 孩子的口腔健康项目预期成果包括确定促进或损害儿童口腔健康的做法，这些做法可为上游和下游政策方向和做法提供信息，以改善健康成果。这提供了一种新的方法来解决“邪恶”的问题，如口腔健康， 尽管口头上说口腔健康是可以预防的，但努力并没有降低发病率和成本。

The aim of the study is to explore "social practices" of oral health in Australian (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) preschool children. We use this emerging theory to move away from focusing on individuals and individual behaviour (and blame) to identify and map social practices: actions, materials and meanings families attribute to child’s oral health. Expected project outcomes include identifying practices promoting or undermining children’s oral health that can inform upstream and downstream policy directions and practices to improve health outcomes. This offers a new approach to "wicked" problems such as oral health where extensive effort has not reduced morbidity and cost despite rhetoric that oral health is preventable.