Primary school-based interventions (one or more of: school health policy, oral health education, healthy school environment, access to oral health services, community involvement) vs usual practice: Oral hygiene measured by mean gingival scores
The effect of school-based interventions on gingival scores is uncertain and not statistically significant (SMD 0.12; very low certainty).
What each review found
Current versions only| Finding | Effect | Studies | GRADE certainty |
|---|---|---|---|
Primary school-based interventions (one or more of: school health policy, oral health education, healthy school environment, access to oral health services, community involvement) vs No intervention or usual practice/activities Oral hygiene measured by mean gingival scores · Primary school children (aged 3-16 years) attending primary school in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) · Post-intervention; follow-up varied across studies (interventions ranged from <2 years to >=2 years and longer), Primary schools in low- and middle-income countries (Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, eastern Mediterranean) The effect of school-based interventions on gingival scores is uncertain and not statistically significant (SMD 0.12; very low certainty). Effectiveness of primary school-based interventions in improving oral health of children in low- and… (2022) All outcomes | SMD 0.12 [-0.32, 0.55] | 3 studies · 1573 participants | Very low |
Findings are shown side by side, never pooled across reviews.
The reviews
| Review | Searched up to | Included studies | AMSTAR 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Effectiveness of primary school-based interventions in improving oral health of children in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic… 2022 All outcomes | 2020-04-08 to 2020-06-07 (updated via automatic alerts; publication window 1995 to December 2021) | 54 | Critically Low / Low |
Studies behind the findings
None of these reviews ties its included studies to this outcome in the data here. Cochrane reviews and reviews with headline outcomes only do not list their studies yet.
How reviews are matched to this question
Reviews word the same question differently. Four decision models (TypeSafe's Jev, Liquid AI's d1-ultra, SubQ Snap and Baseten's Elephant) judged each wording of the population, intervention, comparator and outcome against the others; two wordings count as the same when at least three of them agree and none clearly disagrees, and findings count as this question only when all four elements match. Timing, setting and subgroup never split a question: they are shown on each finding.