Objective To investigate children’s oral health status and the risk factors of oral health, in order to provide suggestions on the prevention of oral diseases in children.

Methods A total of 1817 children from 12 provincial first class kindergartens in Longgang District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province were recruited as study subjects by cluster sampling from 2021 to 2022 school year. Oral health status of all children was checked, and on-site questionnaire survey was used to investigate their life habits and parents’ oral health awareness. Univariate analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to idendity risk factors of children’s oral health.

Results Totally 1158 out of 1817(63.73%) were caries. Univariate analysis showed that age of starting tooth brushing, frequency of daily tooth brushing, whether or not eating sweets, drinking carbonated beverage, and eating before sleep frequently, whether or not having received health education intervention and supervising children’s tooth brushing daily, parents’ awareness of oral health, whether or not taking children to the hospital regularly, and the type of toothpaste used were associated with the incidence of caries in children (all P < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that the risk factors of caries in children included the following 10 issues: age of starting tooth brushing > 3 years old, daily frequency of tooth brushing ≤ 1, eating sweets, drinking carbonated beverage and eating before sleep frequently, having not received health education intervention, not supervising children’s tooth brushing daily, poor awareness of oral health among parents, failing to take children to the hospital regularly, no use of fluoride toothpaste (OR = 1.745, 1.592, 1.490, 1.279, 2.047, 1.377, 1.681, 1.587, 1.862, 1.492, all P < 0.05).

Conclusion Oral health status of children is not optimistic. It is associated with many factors and should be given special attention in oral prevention and health care work.