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Awareness, Capacity Building of Anganwadi Workers and Its Effect on Anganwadi Children's Oral Hygiene: A Mixed
Poonam R Shingare1, Nilesh Rathi1, Snehasish Tripathy2
1Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Dr D Y Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr D Y Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Background:
Anganwadi workers (AWWs) are community activists for social change who work to improve the conditions of women, girls, and young children. With proper training and support, AWWs can be an instrumental source in the promotion of oral health behaviors among children. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of AWW education and training on children's oral hygiene.
Methods:
This study employed a pre-post intervention research design. The study population consisted of 200 AWWs and a total of 1,000 children (500 intervention group and 500 control group) aged 3-5 years. A structured oral health awareness program was delivered among AWWs. After training, the children in the intervention group were introduced to a supervised tooth brushing routine by AWWs with a song in the native Marathi language playing while brushing. In contrast, the control group received usual oral health education. After 3 months, children in both the intervention and control groups were evaluated for oral hygiene status, and Debris Index Score was recorded.
Results:
There was 10.2-91.8% inadequate knowledge on various questions among AWWs. 8.2-71.8% AWWs showed incorrect practices. At baseline, group I had mean score of 0.94 ± 0.99 and group II had mean score of 0.90 ± 1.0. However, after the awareness and capacity-building intervention, a significant reduction in mean Oral Hygiene Index-Debris Index (OHI-DI) scores was noted for group I to 0.54 ± 0.67, whereas the mean OHI-DI score in group II was 0.89 ± 0.92. The difference was found to be significant in both the groups with p-value of 0.001.
Conclusion:
Empowering local healthcare cadres such as AWWs can be a scalable and cost-effective method to enhance oral health outcomes for children in resource-limited settings.
How To Cite This Article:
Shingare PR, Rathi N, Tripathy S. Awareness, Capacity Building of Anganwadi Workers and Its Effect on Anganwadi Children's Oral Hygiene: A Mixed Evaluative Study in Rural Maharashtra, India. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2025;18(7):799-806.
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