Because of the large number of occupational exposures to blood, especially those due to injuries with hollow-bore needles, nurses should adopt more adequate behavioral strategies to prevent the transmission of blood-borne pathogens. Policies for providing adequate education programs tailored to encourage nurses to report all exposures are urgently required.

Caries has a negative influence on health and is still a public health problem among children and adolescents in Poland. The aim of this study was to analyze the association of dietary habits, oral hygiene behaviors and the frequency of usage of dental services with the dental caries index in teenagers in North-West Poland. The study enrolled 264 children (147M/117F) aged 15. Participants filled out a questionnaire regarding age, sex, frequency of visits to the dentist, dietary habits and oral hygiene behaviors, and the Decayed Missing Filled Teeth Index (DMFT) was calculated. Caries was found in 88.6% of subjects. The lower or no caries experience group (DMFT ≤ 5) comprised of 180 subjects, while higher caries experience (DMFT > 5) was found in 84 teenagers and was significantly inversely associated with tooth brushing after the last meal (OR = 0.45; 95% CI:0.21–0.97; p = 0.04) and the daily use of dental floss (OR = 0.12; 95% CI:0.01–0.92; p = 0.04). There is an emerging need for the implementation of effective caries prevention and recovery programs in Poland. Health promotion focusing on oral hygiene behaviors should be disseminated more widely because lower caries experience was demonstrated in teenagers declaring healthy oral habits. Another important need is the development of multi-sectorial actions aiming at the improvement of dietary habits.

The aim of this study was to examine the association of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the gene encoding ficolin-2 protein (FCN2 gene) at positions -986 (rs17514136), -602 (rs3124953), and -4 (rs3124952) with dental caries in Polish children. Two hundred and sixty Polish Caucasian children aged 15 years were enrolled in this study: 82 with “higher” caries experience (DMFT >5) and 178 with “lower” caries experience (DMFT ≤5). In addition, subjects with caries experience (DMFT ≥1) and caries-free subjects (DMFT = 0) were compared. FCN2 SNPs were genotyped with PCR-RFLP methods. There were no significant differences in the genotype, allele, or haplotype distributions in 3 analyzed SNPs of the FCN2 gene between children with “higher” and those with “lower” caries experience as well as between children with caries experience and caries-free children. In conclusion, we did not find any association of FCN2 promoter polymorphisms at positions -986, -602, and -4 with dental caries in Polish children.

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Dental caries belongs to the most common oral diseases worldwide [Frencken et al., 2017]. In Poland, dental caries is of significant public health concern, because high percentage of children are affected by caries, that is, almost 76% of 12-year-olds and 92% of 15-year-old children, with the mean DMFT (decayed, missing, and filled teeth) of 2.8 and 6.1, respectively [Malmö University, 2019].Although environmental risk factors for caries were thoroughly and commonly analyzed in literature, some studies emphasize important role of genetic factors in caries susceptibility [Werneck et al., 2010;Vieira et al., 2014;Opal et al., 2015]. The substantial increase in number of papers addressing the role of genetic factors affecting the caries risk has been observed over the last