Starting next month, preschoolers in Hong Kong will have access to complimentary dental check-ups, with over 70 per cent of the city’s kindergartens already registered for this new government programme.
The Department of Health revealed on Monday that the Outreach Oral Health Programme for Preschool Children will kick off on September 1. The initiative aims to promote good oral hygiene practices and prevent tooth decay from an early age.
Under the scheme, dental teams from 23 participating service providers will visit kindergartens across all 18 districts once each academic year, offering pupils aged 32 months or older free oral screenings and risk assessments.
“Children usually have a full set of milk teeth by the age of three. The period between the ages of three and six is the most crucial time to protect these teeth,” said Dr Kitty Hse Mei-yin, consultant in charge of the dental service at the department.
“At this stage, children love to eat, which makes reinforcing dental care and oral hygiene extremely important.”
Hse said that conducting examinations in a familiar school environment helped ease young children’s anxieties.
“With the encouragement of teachers and the support of peers, they view it as a routine school activity, making it much easier for them to accept,” she said.
As part of the preventive treatment, medical teams will also apply sodium fluoride varnish to healthy teeth to strengthen them and prevent cavities. For children who already have tooth decay, teams will apply silver diamine fluoride to control the condition.
The teams will also issue screening reports to parents, offer individualised dental care advice for children with decayed teeth and provide referrals for eligible students in need.
Service providers began contacting kindergartens in June to schedule visits for the 2026-27 academic year. As of Sunday, providers had reached out to 890 of Hong Kong’s 949 schools, with 680 agreeing to participate – representing 71.7 per cent.
Hse said that most of the remaining institutions already had existing dental care arrangements in place, while others were facing closure or relocation.
She added that providers would continue to follow up with non-participating kindergartens, noting that schools could join at any point during the term.
Free oral health workshops for kindergarten teaching staff will also be held by the dental teams to help them deliver oral care messages to their students.
“The proportion of children with tooth decay experience has remained high over the past decade, meaning a large proportion of five-year-olds still face the threat of dental decay,” said Dr Alex Chau Man-him, senior dental officer in oral health promotion at the department.
According to the department’s 2021 Oral Health Survey, 41.6 per cent of five-year-olds in Hong Kong experienced tooth decay, with an average of 1.8 affected teeth per child.
The survey revealed that most of these cavities went untreated, with half of affected children having four or more decayed teeth.
Only about a quarter of parents had ever taken their five-year-olds to see a dentist, with nearly half of those visits prompted after dental problems had already developed.
With funding support from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, the dental school of the University of Hong Kong has previously organised an oral health project and offered free check-up services to the city’s kindergartens since the 2019-20 school year.
