Prevalence of Dental Caries and Designing the Interventional Strategies for School Children in Rural Konkan Region

School remains an important setting offering an effective and efficient ways to reach over to children and through them, families and community members.(1) Dental caries is very common disease in childhood, interfering with food intake affecting physical development in the form of malnutrition, child's school attendance and academic performance. Tooth decay or cavities caused by dental caries is an infectious disease and is diet and oral hygiene dependent. If left untreated result in toothache, permanent cavitations and children with active disease become adult with tooth decay. Also poor dentition and malocclusion decreases the masticatory performance effecting oral health and quality of life. Fortunately dental caries is both preventable and treatable with effective home care and regular access to preventive dental services. The present study was carried out in the rural area of Konkan region to assess the awareness regarding oral hygiene, prevalence of dental caries, to assess the masticatory performance.