Children and Oral Health: Assessing Needs, Coverage, and Access, June 2012 - Policy Brief

Over a decade ago, Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General – the first-ever such report – raised public awareness about the integral connection between oral health and overall physical health and well-being, and documented the personal and public health consequences of inadequate access to oral health care. In 2007, the death of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver from complications of an abscessed tooth, when his mother could not find a Medicaid-participating dentist to treat him, provided tragic evidence of the most devastating costs of lack of care. Yet dental caries, or tooth decay, remains the most common chronic disease among children ages 6-18. According to the most current estimates, more than 40% of U.S. children ages 2 to 11 have decay in their baby teeth, and, among all children ages 6-18, about one-quarter have untreated decay. 3 Dental caries and other oral diseases disproportionately affect low-income children and children of color.