Low-Income, Minority Populations Face Several Barriers To Dental Care

Main Category: Dentistry
Article Date: 29 Mar 2007 - 17:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

The Washington Post on Tuesday examined how the recent death of a 12-year-old Washington, D.C.-area boy "is drawing renewed attention to the barriers to oral health care facing the nation's poor" and minority populations. The boy, Deamonte Driver, was black, homeless and had trouble finding a dentist who would accept his family's Medicaid coverage, the Post reports. Driver died after an infection that started in his tooth spread to his brain. According to the 2006 National Survey of Children's Health, which was released by HHS, white children overall have better oral health than black and Hispanic children. In addition, the report linked good oral health with good overall health. According to the report, 74.4% of children whose overall health was described as "excellent" or "very good" also had "excellent" or "very good" dental health. However, 38% of children whose overall health was considered "good," "fair" or "poor" had teeth in "excellent" or "very good" condition. Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, current director of the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine, said that racial and economic disparities exist "in both the prevalence of oral health problems and ... access to oral health care." People who are poor, particularly children and the elderly, are more likely than others to have poor oral health, he added. Satcher oversaw the 2000 release of the first surgeon general report on oral health. Children who are enrolled in Medicaid face several barriers to dental care, including limited English proficiency, low reimbursement rates for providers, bureaucracy and lack of transportation, according to the Post. Poor and underserved patients seeking dental care generally can obtain services through clinics. About 73% of the federally qualified health centers funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration provide dental services on site (Payne, Washington Post, 3/27).

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

• Additional
• References
• Citations