An op-ed in today’s Boston Globe highlights the oral health needs of children in Massachusetts. Fay Donohue, the President and CEO of Delta Dental of Massachusetts, wrote that while we’ve made great strides over the past ten years, the Commonwealth can do even better to protect the oral health of our children by increasing community water fluoridation and improved access to dental sealants through school-based dental preventive programs.
Donohue credited Health Care for All along with Delta Dental of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Dental Society and several legislators as playing key roles in oral health advocacy in the Bay State. Among Massachusetts’ achievements, she wrote that we are one of only nine states with less than a quarter of our school children suffering from untreated tooth decay. Yet, one in ten minority children in Massachusetts still goes to school with pain caused by preventable dental disease which can have profound effects on a child’s ability to learn, play and grow.
“We have already done much of the heavy lifting,” Donohue writes. We can continue to improve the overall health of the Commonwealth by committing ourselves to community- and policy-based oral health interventions.
-Tiana Wilkinson
I agree; people tend to take dental health for granted, so they ignore good oral care. They have to understand that their oral health is connected to their overall health so that they will be encouraged to care for their teeth better.