# PREDICTING CARIES RISK IN UNDERSERVED CHILDREN, FROM TODDLERS TO THE SCHOOL-AGE YEARS, IN PRIMARY HEALTHCARE SETTINGS

> **NIH NIH U01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2021 · $7,582

## Abstract

SUMMARY OF FUNDED PARENT GRANT:
Dental caries, one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood, is a largely preventable disease, yet approximately
23% of U.S. children 2-5 years-of-age experience dental caries, and this number more than doubles to 56% among those
aged 6-8. In the current environment of escalating healthcare costs and resource constraints, the large disparities in
caries experience and access to care that exist in the U.S., especially among low socioeconomic status (SES) and
minority population groups, call for a greater focus on targeted (at the patient and tooth surface level), risk-based caries
preventive and therapeutic strategies to be delivered through interprofessional partnerships, including primary healthcare
settings. Our team has just finished following 1,326 children from age 1 to age 4, and we have started data analyses to
validate a caries risk questionnaire for use by medical providers to accurately identify high caries risk toddlers. The
problem is that, while caries experience more than doubles from ages 2-5 to 6-8, caries in primary teeth during mixed
dentition is a largely neglected area of research and prevention, there is no validated caries risk tool for medical settings
to easily help triage 5-8 year old children, and there have been almost no studies following the life-course progression of
caries in children 1-8. This information is critically important, as designing and targeting efficacious and cost-effective
preventive therapies that can adapt to changes in the life-course from toddlers to school-age children is dependent on
accurate risk factor and tooth surface assessment. Thus, the objectives of this innovative continuation renewal study are:
1) to develop a practical and easily-scored caries risk tool for use in primary medical healthcare settings to identify high
caries risk children, expanding from the toddler (1-4) to the school-age years (5-8); and 2) to determine the relationships
between caries risk profiles and caries disease patterns (e.g., occlusal vs. proximal) in the mixed dentition. This will be
accomplished by following a cohort of 876 primary caregiver (PCG)-child pairs from our ongoing U01’s enrolled pairs. This
cohort represents a diverse population, including ethnic/racial minorities and low SES groups. The PCG will complete a
caries risk questionnaire and the child will have caries examinations at baseline (child’s age 6.5 years old + 3 months),
and again at 18 months (child’s age 8 years + 3 months) and 36 months after baseline (child’s age 9.5 years + 3 months)
to monitor the caries disease process. Longitudinal caries risk data and caries disease prevalence/incidence and tooth
surface pattern information collected from age 1-4 (ongoing U01) and 5-8 (proposed continuing renewal) will be used to
assess risk of caries in children ages 5-8. A great strength of this proposal is that it involves four experienced medical and
dental investigator groups, who have successfully worke...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10361268
- **Project number:** 3U01DE021412-10S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Margherita R Fontana
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $7,582
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-05-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10361268

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10361268, PREDICTING CARIES RISK IN UNDERSERVED CHILDREN, FROM TODDLERS TO THE SCHOOL-AGE YEARS, IN PRIMARY HEALTHCARE SETTINGS (3U01DE021412-10S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10361268. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*