Little Teeth, Big Responsibility

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

Oral health is vital to the development and outcome of a child’s overall health. Poor oral health increases the likelihood of tooth decay, which leads to pain and infection that may result in poor nutrition and school absenteeism in children. Consequently, First 5 San Bernardino (F5SB) and the San Bernardino County (SBC) Department of Public Health (DPH) Local Oral Health (LOH) program, Smile SBC, collaborated on a bilingual (English/Spanish) campaign to raise awareness about the importance of and need for proper oral hygiene and twice-yearly dental visits for children five years of age and younger. The “Little Teeth, Big Responsibility” campaign was a comprehensive campaign launched for National Children’s Dental Health Month in February that combined a variety of elements including campaign images and messaging, a social media toolkit, social media posts and paid advertisements, billboards, eNewsletter article and video and press release. The primary goal of the campaign was to bring awareness to community leaders, partners and the public about the importance of oral health for young children using targeted core messages. The second goal was to increase traffic to the www.SmileSBC.org “Find a Dentist” webpage to link the public to nearby dentists for care appointments.