Life Long Oral Health

Interviews with citizens and relatives

From the beginning of the project, we have conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with elderly individuals and their relatives at nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and in private homes in Frederiksberg Municipality and Greve Municipality.
We have gained close insight into each person’s individual experiences with oral health issues and the care and treatment they receive—particularly within the municipal system.
These in-depth interviews have provided us with valuable understanding of the challenges, barriers, and potentials that our project group must address in order to improve oral health among elderly people in Denmark.

Focus group interviews with municipal care sector staff

We have conducted focus group interviews with care staff from various professional backgrounds working in home care and nursing homes, as well as with managers, care coordinators, and dementia coordinators from Frederiksberg Municipality and Greve Municipality.
The focus groups have provided the project with broad insight into the role of oral health in care—both at an organizational level and in daily care tasks—as well as knowledge about workflows and working conditions in the care sector.
This substantial knowledge enables us to understand the opportunities and limitations that the project group must consider in its efforts to improve oral health among elderly people in Denmark.

Clinical dental examinations among frail elderly citizens

To generate knowledge about the extent of dental diseases within our target group, we have conducted clinical dental examinations of citizens in their own homes, as well as in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers.
We recorded the dental status of each individual and examined their teeth, jaws, and oral mucosa. Among other things, we registered caries, periodontitis, number of teeth, number of fillings, and dental prostheses.
Taken together, this has provided us with insight into the current state of oral health among elderly citizens and the extent of their immediate need for dental treatment.

Survey

We conducted a survey among approximately 200 citizens living in nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and in their own homes.
In the survey, participants answered questions about their dental care habits, general health, how they feel about their teeth, and their views on oral health and dental care.
This provides us with insight into how citizens experience their daily functioning, any discomfort they may have related to their mouth and teeth, and their perception and prioritization of oral health.

Population studies by VIVE

VIVE is involved in examining the use of general adult dental care and municipal geriatric dental care among elderly people.
In particular, the focus is on how dental care usage changes as individuals become frail.
Both national registry data and municipal data from Frederiksberg, Greve, Copenhagen, Randers, Aalborg, Svendborg, and Varde municipalities are being used.

Co-creation processes with Frederiksberg and Greve Municipalities

To ensure ownership and deeply rooted implementation of the project’s solutions, we are conducting workshops and learning seminars throughout the project period. These involve staff across professional groups, organizational levels, and shifts in the municipalities.
This approach ensures that the project’s solutions become part of the everyday routines for care-receiving elderly citizens and the staff around them.
Such anchoring is essential to achieving the project’s overall goal of improving oral health among elderly people in Denmark.

Involvement of citizens and relatives: Conversation salons

The involvement of elderly citizens is absolutely essential to the Healthy Mouth Throughout Life project.
We firmly believe that successful implementation and anchoring of the project’s solutions can only be achieved when the citizens at the heart of it are included in the process.
Therefore, we regularly host events where we engage elderly citizens to gather their input on our findings, goals, and initiatives—such as through conversation salons and public meetings.

The SMUHL advisory group aims to strengthen the project by advising the central steering committee on its direction, priorities, and use of results.
The group meets regularly twice a year, as well as at selected points during the project, where members have the opportunity to comment on and contribute to the project's progress, initiatives, scaling, dissemination, and evaluation.

The advisory group consists of representatives from relevant stakeholders, including citizens from the advisory committees on elder care in Greve and Frederiksberg municipalities.

• Tenna Jensen (head), senior researcher National Institute of Public Health
• Susanne Henriette Nielsen, Senior Council, Greve Municipality
• Hugo Vandet/Birgitte Franck, Elder Council, Frederiksberg Municipality
• Lene Vilstrup, Senior Consultant and Senior Dentist, Danish Health Authority
• Rikke Hamfeldt, Senior Consultant, Ældresagen
• Susanne Kleist, Head, Danish Dental Association
• Bodil Andersen, Senior Consultant, Danish Society for Patient Safety/”In Safe Hands”
• Anders Tøttrup, Professor, Citizen Science University of Copenhagen
• Inger Wårdh og Nivetha Gavriilidou, researchers, Department of Dental Medicine, Karolinska Instituttet

The project is a collaborative initiative between the Department of Odontology and Copenhagen Center for Health Research in the Humanities (CoRe, SAXO Institute) at the University of Copenhagen (KU), Greve Municipality, and Frederiksberg Municipality. In addition, the municipalities of Copenhagen, Hedensted, Randers, Aalborg, Varde, and Svendborg are contributing dental care data to establish a solid data foundation for mapping oral health challenges.

The project is primarily funded by the Velux Foundation and Sygeforsikringen "danmark". Furthermore, the Danish Dental Association and the Danish Association of Employed Dentists have contributed to the project’s financing.