Children’s Dental Health – A Moral Imperative

• More than half the children in the U.S. have unmet dental needs.
  
• Dental decay is the most common chronic disease of childhood.
  
• Dental problems such as pain and infection affect one in four school children, leading to hours lost from school, costly emergency room visits and hospital treatments.
  
• Because children are dependent on others and many are disadvantaged by poverty, we must make special provisions to ensure children receive the care they need.
  

This is National Children’s Dental Health Month – a time to focus on improving dental health for all children. The recent Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General, states that dental care is the most prevalent unmet health care need of children. Children from minority and/or poor families, as well as those without health insurance and those with special health care needs, are at increased risk for unmet dental needs. Altogether, these total more than half of all children in the United States.

Dental decay is the most common chronic childhood disease. In addition, periodontal disease and precancerous lesions are found in youth who smoke or use chewing tobacco. Oral and facial conditions have a significant impact on the overall health and well-being of the child. Dental problems cause an estimated 52 million hours lost from school, and many costly emergency room visits and hospital treatments. Untreated dental decay can cause infection throughout the body and can interfere with growth. The treatment of routine dental problems such as decay accounts for approximately 20 to 30 percent of family health expenditures for children. Much of this disease can easily be prevented.

Children deserve necessary dental care as part of their basic health care because it is essential to their overall opportunities in life. Poor children have about 12 times as many restricted activity days from dental disease as children from higher income families. Poor dental health can lead to higher absenteeism and hinder a child’s progress in school.

The moral obligation to help meet the dental needs of vulnerable children extends to all of us who understand children’s dental needs – health professionals, policy makers, teachers and the public.

We as a society expect parents to take responsibility for their children’s health care; however, we as a society have the obligation to ensure the child receives that care. Because children are dependent on others and many are disadvantaged by poverty, our society’s obligation to protect their health is increased.

Powerful moral arguments support access to basic health care, including dental care, for all children.

If the needs of all children are to be met, the focus must move beyond the patient in the dental office. Until these needs are met, we must have policymakers discussing the problem and the solutions.

Various stakeholders need to form a coalition for children’s dental health if the desired results are to be achieved. One such initiative was the 2002 conference, “The Future of Children’s Oral Health in Texas – a Statewide Dental Summit” convened in Houston by The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston, The Dental Health Task Force of the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area and the Texas Department of Health. An interesting fact reported there from recent research is that, within just one month, 25 percent of all seventh and tenth graders surveyed had an “oral impact” to their daily lives – a problem affecting activities such as eating and schoolwork.

A possible solution to this dilemma is the American Dental Association’s “Give Kids a Smile Day” Feb. 21, which encourages dental professionals to play an active role in treating children without regular access to dental care. We can implement improvements in our public health preventive programs, such as water fluoridation. We can begin programs for preventive dentistry – with parental involvement – in preschools and elementary schools, emphasizing daily prevention regimens. We can implement improvements in preventive programs, such as the proper diagnosis for and increased application of tooth sealants. We can begin children’s prevention programs with maternal health and education programs. Preventing dental decay and other diseases begins well before the teeth erupt.

We should continue to form the coalition to influence change. We should expect our policymakers to implement cost-effective prevention and treatment for children’s dental health care. And we should challenge ourselves to do this before another National Children’s Dental Health Month is celebrated.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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