Pediatric Dentistry Paper

Over 130 million Americans do not have dental insurance. On top of that, almost a million emergency room visits last year resulted from preventable oral conditions. Many Americans today are unaware of how the condition of their dentition affects their overall health. Socioeconomic limitations, the lack of dental education in parents, eating habits, and simply the availability of dentists plays a key role in the state of children’s oral health; implementing a universal dental care program will help lower the barriers that many people face when it comes to receiving the dental care they need. The program will target high-risk individuals who are prone to dental caries and provide them with standard

Over 130 million Americans do not have dental insurance. On top of that, almost a million emergency room visits last year resulted from preventable oral conditions. Many Americans today are unaware of how the condition of their dentition affects their overall health. Socioeconomic limitations, the lack of dental education in parents, eating habits, and simply the availability of dentists plays a key role in the state of children’s oral health; implementing a universal dental care program will help lower the barriers that many people face when it comes to receiving the dental care they need. The program will target high-risk individuals who are prone to dental caries and provide them with standard treatment.

The websites I used for my research were Center for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization. The World Health Organization defines Oral Health as “a state of being free from chronic mouth and facial pain, oral and throat cancer, oral sores, birth defects such as cleft lip and palate, periodontal (gum) disease, tooth decay and tooth loss, and other diseases and disorders that affect the oral cavity” (2015). It is necessary to brush our teeth twice a day for two minutes and floss daily. Since tooth decay has been one of the most common chronic disease among children in the United States, I found it very important to educate them that this is a preventable disease and what ways it can be

“The impact of unmet oral health care needs is magnified by the well-established connection between oral health and overall health” (Fineberg, H. 2011, p. ix). Oral health status is linked with general health, as evidenced by the association between poor oral health and chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease. Poor oral hygiene can also lead to other health issues such as, oral facial pain and digestive problems. “The silent epidemic of oral diseases disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities,

Oral disease is on of the most common health problems affecting children in the United States (Oral Health in America, 2000). Dental caries is the most prevalent dental disease in children which occurs more often in disadvantaged children than in others. Additionally, children with public insurance have great difficulty gaining access to primary oral care services (Kaye N, 1998; Oral health, 2000). A Report of the Surgeon General stated that minority and low-income children in the United States experience poorer oral health and poorer access to dental health care services than do their majority and higher-income peers (Oral Health in America, 2000). Each year, less than one in five children enrolled in Medicaid use preventive services (Kaye N, 1998; Oral health, 2000). Even if the public insured children get some access to preventive care, access to comprehensive dental care is much more less (Oral Health in America, 2000).

Research has been showed that such an improvement is due to many factors that combined together. One of these factors is systemic water fluoridation, which has been announced to have a substantial impact on children dental health, alongside with topical fluoride that can be found in mouthwash, toothpaste, and fluoride supplements. In addition to better nutrition, rising standards of living, and better access to dental care 76.

4. Develop a written dental hygiene care plan that establishes a framework within which to identify goals for obtaining oral health. In addition to the clinical assessment, your plan should take into account the patient’s age, gender, lifestyle, culture, attitudes, health beliefs, and knowledge level. Your instructor may provide guidelines, or you may use the suggested list of possible unmet needs, called deficits, found in the Human Needs Conceptual Model to Dental Hygiene Practice (see Chapter 1). Identification of deficits will guide you in generating a treatment plan that gives the patient an active role in assisting with improving and maintaining health. Use this

Dental sealants are used to fill pits and fissures on the occlusal, or chewing, surfaces of the premolars and molars to help protect them from carious lesions and tooth decay (“Dental Sealants”, 2016). Posterior teeth that are selected for placement of sealants are either newly erupted, when occlusal surface is deep and irregular, and have a history of dental caries (Wilkins, 621). So it is very important, especially for children, to get sealants placed as soon as their molars erupt in order to lower their risk for childhood caries. However, there are many factors that have caused children to be withheld from radiographic screenings and treatment; one major factor is parents not being able to afford the treatment. But, one thing that has helped many children get sealants placed is a school sealant programs; funded by the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC has supported for the placement of sealants along with other oral health care activities in many states, including South Carolina. In South Carolina, school sealants programs have been helping save high caries risk teeth since

Socioeconomic status (SES) is the strongest determinant of health outcomes (Marmot & Bell, 2011). Parents and children of lower socioeconomic status are at higher risk of negative oral health outcomes and poor oral health-related quality of life (Jones, Shi, Hayashi, Sharma, Daly, & Ngo-Metzger, 2013 and Wells, Caplan, Strauss, Bell & George, 2010). Women with lower socioeconomic status are 30% less likely to utilize dental services. Likewise, they are 30% more likely to report unmet dental needs than women in higher socioeconomic gradients (Kaylor, Polivka, Chaudry, Salsberry, & Wee, 2010).

The method from Health Education Journal was based on collecting and evaluating evidence, “…using a combined approach incorporating the Cochrane Public Health and Health Promotion Field Handbook and the Health Gains Notation in order to a develop a synthesis approach to reporting,” (Satur et al., 2010). However, Community Dental Health utilized electronic searching, iterative-hand searching, critical appraisal and data synthesis in which the primary research reviewed settings were at clinical, community, schools or other institutions in which children, elderly, people with handicaps and disabilities were the participants. Another difference in both articles is the conclusions. Community Dental Health concluded that the use of fluoride is efficient in reducing caries through oral health promotion, chairside oral health promotion is shown to be effective; however mass media programs have not. On the other hand, the article from Health Education Journal states that even though there is a respectable support in incorporating the oral health into the general health promotion, it is vital to observe the outcomes in oral health terms.

Since 1989 the dental health of Australian children have been reported annually for each state and territory, the Australian Institute

Prevention of oral disease is critical in Early Head Start (EHS) programs. “Early childhood caries has emerged as a concern over the past few years because of its widespread and increasing prevalence, its inequitable distribution among preschool-aged children and its negative consequences for children, their families, and public health programs” (Mofidi, Zeldin, & Rozier, 2009, p. 245). Assessable to young children in most parts of the United Stated, dental care provides treatment, particularly to children in low-income families. Rates of failure to treat oral health has increase tremendously. Approaches explored by EHS programs to treat as well as prevent will decrease high-risk for early childhood caries.

First of all, comparing tooth decay levels of children with (author fails to define the age group children ) with that of general population of broader age group is flawed as children have healthy and strong teeth and better immunity to ward of any tooth decay compared to older groups like octogenarians who have frail tooth

“Tooth decay is our nation’s most common childhood disease” (Nash, Mathu-Muju, Friedman, 2015). For years, childhood tooth decay and caries have been an increasing challenge. In addition to being the most common childhood disease, it is also the most prevalent health need that is consistently unmet. Despite these statistics, it is also known that early childhood caries (ECC) is highly preventable and can even be reversed with early diagnosis and professional intervention and guidance upon dental visits (Beil, Rozier, Preisser, Stearns, and Lee, 2014). So, if it is known that regular dental visits correlate with fewer ECC and treatments, then why is it that there is still such a high statistical number of untreated cases? Although this challenge has many factors associated with it, one of the largest challenges to oral health in Canada is access to oral healthcare for children. These children who lack access, statistically, have more oral disparities that may follow them into adulthood. Thus, creating an oral health problem for when this generation becomes adults as well. To solve the root of the problem, there is a need to focus on increasing children’s oral health and access to oral healthcare. Questions arise of why these children lack the access and what can be done to change this. Solutions such as introducing dental care and checkups in rural and community preschools/elementary have been of recent interest and will be discussed further (Nash et al., 2015). Here, the

Early intervention and care can prevent most of the oral health diseases. Nevertheless, dental caries remains the most common chronic disease among children and adolescents in the United States (Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). About 14.4% of children aged 3-5 years had untreated dental caries in 2009 -2010 (Dye 2012). In addition to pain and discomfort, untreated deciduous tooth caries can spread to roots and may lead to loss of tooth. This can subsequently affect the successor permanent tooth eruption leading to malocclusion which in turn can result in permanent teeth caries. Between 2007 and 2010, 15.6% of children aged 6-19 years had untreated dental caries (National Center for Health Statistics, 2014).