In October 2021, the project conducted by Professor Zheng Shuguo’s research team, entitled “Study on the eruption time and order of primary teeth in Chinese children”, successfully won the First Prize of Scientific and Technological Achievements in the National Science and Technology Awards for Maternal and Child Health.

This project was the only one within the field of stomatology among all the awarded projects.

Currently, all research data on the eruption of primary teeth were obtained from an old study on a Caucasian population conducted by a Swedish scientist in 1962, which could not accurately represent the dental conditions of Chinese children. With the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, Prof. Zheng’s team conducted a multi-centre study with both cross-sectional investigations and longitudinal follow-ups. The innovative method of “assigning scores by tooth surfaces” was adopted for calculating the time of tooth eruption. This project eventually constructed a shared databank of the eruption time and order of primary teeth in Chinese children, thus filling up the lack of valid clinical data for tooth eruption in Chinese children. These findings also provided cues for formulating policies, strategies and intervention programs in dental public health for the whole country.