The COVID-19 pandemic has almost certainly affected everyone. Lost lives, lost jobs, lost connections—nearly every facet of our society looks different roughly a year into this global fight. Imagine going through the experience as a child. Kids have been isolated. Their schools have closed. Their play groups have been cancelled. Their access to community programs and support has been stripped away. And, in many cases, they have been forced to process unprecedented family stress around health and financial instability. It’s no wonder kids are struggling. It also tracks that children’s oral health, which is connected in so many ways to overall health and well-being, is bearing the consequences of this pandemic. One big reason for this? School closures cut a critical line of oral care for millions of underserved children nationwide, many of whom only ever saw a dentist through school-based and community-based oral health programs. Even before the pandemic, tooth decay was the most common chronic disease among children nationwide. About 20% of children ages 5 to 11 have at least one untreated decayed tooth, and children ages 5 to 19 from low-income families are twice as likely to have cavities. This, we know, impacts every aspect of a child’s overall health, from nutrition and eating habits to school attendance, academic performance and behaviour, and mental health. As a dentist, the most challenging part of seeing a child suffer like this knows how easily it could have been prevented. But the good news is we are on the right track toward making dental care more accessible to children and families as we move through this pandemic and beyond. For one, Medicaid enrolment has grown, meaning more children have access to public aid who may not have had insurance coverage prior. Here are several ways the industry, and DentaQuest in particular, is addressing the challenge and why I’m optimistic for the future. Increasing access to oral care for Medicaid-enrolled children has to be a priority if we want to eliminate the deep disparities in our health system and reach the kids who most need our help. Many states are already doing this. Texas’s First Dental Home, through a multi-pronged effort, succeeded in increasing access and utilization of preventive oral health services for children enrolled in Medicaid ages 6 to 35 months. In Louisiana, DentaQuest, the state’s Medicaid benefits administrator, is specifically focused on ensuring more people see a dentist at least once per year. We’re doing this with programs that establish dental homes for both children and adults and working directly with rural communities that face unique challenges around getting to the dentist. Community-based dental programs, like school-based care, provide essential access for kids. They are extremely effective at increasing preventive care utilization, as well as identifying more serious oral health issues that may have gone unnoticed for too long. School-based sealant programs, for example, have been shown to reduce decay by an average of 60% over five years. Even as schools have closed, we’ve seen dentists turning to community centers and other locations to set up day clinics where families can bring kids to access the screenings and cleanings they missed through school.

Regards
Sarah eve

Editorial Assistant

Journal of Oral Hygiene and Health