Health officials in the Bay of Plenty are taking to the internet and social media in an effort to spread the word about good oral healthcare.

The Bay of Plenty District Health Board's Oral Health Team recently launched their own Talkteeth-bopdhb Facebook page, and followed it up with the a Talk Teeth webpage, which went live on Friday.

The BOPDHB's Oral Health Team is launching a dedicated webpage and Facebook site: (from left) Stephen Cameron, Norma Van Orendonk, Cheryl Billett, Teneille Ogilvy and Hatea Ruru. Photo: Supplied.

'Facebook is a fun social space,” says BOPDHB Dental Services Health Promotion Officer Teneille Ogilvy. 'It creates the sense of being part of a community and we want to harness that to spread the oral healthcare message.

'We want to reach our target audience, the hard-to-reach high-risk population, and communicate our key messages on oral health while also giving people the opportunity to talk to us.”

The team will make regular postings on the Facebook page with relevant oral healthcare content, interactive conversations, videos and competitions.

'We want it to be interactive, have Facebook users respond to posts and we want to be able to give quick friendly replies to the community,” says Teneille.

'Through our conversations with the community it became clear that general knowledge of oral healthcare could be improved,” said BOPDHB Community Dental Services Oral Health Promoter Stephen Cameron.

'For example, many New Zealand residents do not understand their entitlement to free basic dental care from birth until 18 years of age. This, and more, is made clear on the Talk Teeth webpages.”

The webpages are broken into age ranges and major topics. The '0-4 Years” link explains how it's essential for pre-schoolers to be enrolled with community dental services to access free dental care.

The '13-17 Years - The Transfer Process” link details the process for youth to move from community dental services to a contracted dental provider.

'Another aim of the Talk Teeth webpages is to deliver fun, healthy eating messages through healthy cooking recipes,” said Stephen.

Click here to visit the BOPDHB Talk Teeth webpage. The Facebook page ‘Talkteeth-bopdhb' is available here.