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Social Networks Have Significant Influence In Oral Health

Social Networks Have Significant Influence In Oral Health
from Dentistry Today

While dentists play a key role in encouraging oral health, friends and family can be influential too, according to Brenda Heaton, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor of health policy and health services research at Boston University’s Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine. She and her colleagues at the university’s Center for Research to Evaluate & Eliminate Dental Disparities have been investigating oral health and disease among residents of Boston’s public housing.

Most of their work has focused on whether or not “motivational interviewing” can influence how women care for their children’s diet and oral health—specifically, their impact on kids with dental caries. Mounting evidence suggests that one-on-one behavioral interventions, like motivational interviewing, may change short-term behavior, but their effects don’t last long.

“We started to get a sense that there may be more influences that we need to acknowledge beyond just the individual,” said Heaton, who also found that social networks—not Facebook and Twitter but networks of friends, family, and acquaintances—may play an overlooked role in oral healthcare.

Some of the women who were interviewed had been born and raised in the family unit they were living in and were now raising their own children in that unit, meaning grandmothers, mothers, and children all living together. Those close connections influenced how people behaved, Heaton said, and the researcher had to tap into those networks herself to make significant progress against diseases like tooth decay.

That is not easy, but it is important, said Thomas Valente, PhD, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California and an expert in social networks in healthcare. People believe information more when it comes from someone they know or respect, and evidence indicates that people are more willing to trust people who are like them, Valente said. All too often, he added, health information is handed to a community by people on the outside, and it is less impactful.

“It’s like West Side Story,” said Valente, who was not involved in Heaton’s study. “It’s like being a Shark and having a Jet come up to you and tell you to do something. It is just not going to happen.”

Read full article on Dentistry Today.