Health inequalities, particularly in oral health, remain a pressing yet often overlooked issue for local marginalised communities and ethnic minorities in Scotland. These communities face unique challenges, such as language barriers, difficulty accessing dentists, a lack of easily understandable information, limited knowledge about oral health and nutrition, and unawareness of healthcare costs and available exemptions.
Amid these challenges, projects like Eat Well for Oral Health bring hope and positive change. This inspiring initiative, spearheaded by LINKnet and Edinburgh Community Food, has been dedicated to enhancing oral health and overall well-being in marginalised and minority communities around Edinburgh for nearly three years. Through community-cantered efforts, they are making a lasting impact where it’s needed most.
A Community Approach to Oral Health
LINKnet Mentoring and Edinburgh community food collaborated successfully to deliver “Eat Well for Oral Health” in 2022. It is a community-based food skills, nutrition and oral health awareness project to drive oral health improvements for all living in vulnerable circumstances and affected by socio-economic and race inequalities. It is designed to improve the oral health of children, families and targeted communities by sharing diet and nutrition knowledge and enhancing cooking skills and confidence using a community-based approach.
Participants feedback showed that the initiative successfully increased awareness of healthy eating (91%), improved understanding of diet’s link to oral health (91%), enhanced cooking skills (79%), boosted fruit and vegetable consumption (79%), and encouraged better adherence to oral health practices (82%). It also led to higher dental visit rates (74%) and greater overall awareness of oral health care (90%).
Advocacy: Registering with NHS Dentists
Accessing dental care is a fundamental step in maintaining oral health. Unfortunately, many members of ethnic minority communities face challenges in navigating the NHS system. Language barriers, unfamiliarity with the process, in addition to the registration crisis can deter individuals from seeking care. The project’s advocacy component directly addresses this issue by helping ethnic minority and marginalized community members register with NHS dentists. Staff and volunteers from diverse cultural backgrounds, often multilingual and culturally sensitive, provide personalised support, ensuring that everyone knows how to access the dentist they need. This initiative has already seen numerous families find and register with local NHS dentists, opening the door to regular check-ups and preventive care.
Quote from service user S:
“I learned about Linknet through our organisation open arms health leads. It was an excellent course, and I benefited a lot from information about oral and dental health. Thanks to you, my family and I were able to find a dental clinic, and this was the biggest help for us.”
Cooking Sessions: Nutrition Meets Oral Health
Oral health and diet are closely connected, but many people don’t realise how food choices affect their teeth and gums. To address this, LINKnet and Edinburgh Community Food offer culturally tailored cooking 6-weeks sessions that focus on nutritious, teeth-friendly meals, in addition to nutrition and oral health advice. These sessions teach about topics such as sugar’s effects, label reading, and practical tips for healthier eating and oral hygiene, using traditional recipes and accessible ingredients etc. Participants gain new recipes and a better understanding of protecting their oral health through diet and building healthy oral health habits.
Training Community Champions for a Brighter Future
The Eat Well for Oral Health project empowers staff and volunteers to become community champions in oral health and nutrition. These trained champions will educate their communities on key topics like sugar’s impact, brushing techniques, and the role of nutrition, etc., leveraging existing trust to promote good oral health and healthy eating.
The project, led by LINKnet Mentoring and Edinburgh Community Food with NHS Lothian oversight and Scottish Government funding, has already improved oral health and confidence in marginalised communities. The next phase involves expanding training to other organisations, with pilot sessions starting in August and regular sessions beginning in September. Additionally, EWFOH collaborates with NES Education to develop bite-sized learning resources for oral health.
Closing the gap of health inequalities through employment support and breaking other barriers.
LINKnet is the pioneer in providing employability services to minority ethnic communities in Scotland through the provision of one-to-one mentoring and other complementary services such as English language development and work experience volunteering programme.
Living in low-income households has proved to be at the top of the list that cause the widening gap of health inequalities. LINKnet’s employability mentoring programme and related complementary services have a proven track record of helping many people to achieve employment outcomes and in turn to diminish the health inequality gap.
Want to learn more about the project and explore ways to get involved? Contact volunteer3@linknetmentoring.com for more information and to join our efforts.
Ahmed Bagaber is the Oral Health Development Officer at LINKnet Mentoring Ltd
