# SORRIA! Assessing Brazilian Immigrant Parents' Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors for their Young Children > **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON · 2024 · $191,612 ## Abstract PROJECT SUMMARY Oral health (OH) is an essential component of overall health. Early childhood caries (ECC, tooth decay), a preventable and reversible bacterial infectious disease, is the single most prevalent chronic childhood disease in the United States (US).1-3 Poor OH and ECC disproportionally affect racial/ethnic minoritized and immigrant children4,5 from families with low socioeconomic position (SEP). Furthermore, evidence shows that individuals who immigrate when < 20 years of age are 2- 4 times more likely to have a child with ECC than parents who are native-born or who immigrated when younger.6-10 In the US, Hispanic/Latinx children are more likely than children of all other racial and ethnic groups to experience ECC, except American Indians.6-8 Children’s OH behaviors and risk of ECC are influenced by the child’s and parent's sociodemographic and acculturation level, biological, behavioral, and psychosocial variables.5-9 Parents play a central role in their children’s OH-related behaviors.6-13 Evidence suggests that less acculturated Hispanic/Latinx parents have lower OH knowledge, higher stress, and more barriers to accessing OH/dental care for their children than more acculturated counterparts.8,9 Brazilians are a fast-growing Latin American immigrant group in the US. Yet, little research has focused on health issues affecting them.14,15 The US has the largest Brazilian population outside of Brazil; ~1,750,000 Brazilians live in the US.19,20 Portuguese is the official language of Brazil and a very important cultural difference between Brazilians and other Spanish- speaking Hispanic/Latinx groups.17,18 There is a general lack of research focusing on the OH of Brazilian immigrant families and their children living in the US. Studies conducted in Brazil suggest that low-income children and parents in this population have low OH knowledge, poor OH status, higher prevalence of ECC, and low OH-related quality of life.17-21 Understanding Brazilian immigrant parents’ OH knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors (KAB) and their experience accessing and utilizing OH/dental care will allow for the design of salient interventions to improve OH behaviors, OH outcomes, and OH-related quality of life.22,23 Therefore, the specific aims for the proposed research are to: (1) use qualitative research methods to explore Brazilian immigrant parents’ OH KAB and access and utilization of OH/dental care for their children (Phase 1: Focus Groups); (2) translate/back translate the survey to Brazilian Portuguese and then use focus groups’ findings, expert review, and pilot-testing to adapt the Basic Research Factors Questionnaire (BRFQ) for Brazilians in the US; (3) use the adapted BRFQ to assess psychosocial and cultural factors associated with Brazilian immigrant parents’ OH KAB and access and utilization of OH/dental care for their young children (Phase 3: Survey Implementation). The proposed community-engaged research is innovative because it will be the first to... ## Key facts - **NIH application ID:** 10881921 - **Project number:** 5R21DE032853-02 - **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON - **Principal Investigator:** ANA CRISTINA TERRA DE SOUZA LINDSAY - **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.) - **Funding institute:** NIH - **Fiscal year:** 2024 - **Award amount:** $191,612 - **Award type:** 5 - **Project period:** 2023-07-15 → 2026-07-31 ## Primary source NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10881921 ## Citation > US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10881921, SORRIA! Assessing Brazilian Immigrant Parents' Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors for their Young Children (5R21DE032853-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-02 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10881921. Licensed CC0. --- *[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*