HKU Faculty of Dentistry researchers call for increased attention to oral health of Chinese migrant children

China’s economic and urban developments are driving up the proportion of rural-to-urban migrants in the population. However, because these migrants are often not registered as new residents, national oral health surveys largely miss this group, and especially migrant children. A team of researchers — who included Dr Xiao-li Gao and Professor Colman McGrath from the HKU Faculty of Dentistry — therefore aimed to explore and understand the oral health status of 5-year-old children attending a school for migrants in Guangzhou, where rural-to-urban migrants currently make up about a third of the local population.