Saturday, October 10, 2009

Smile Big, Now

I enjoyed this series of posts on Slate about The American Way of Dentistry 2009: A look at the coming crisis.

The author notes that "Everybody knows about the crisis in American medical care. Nobody knows about the crisis in American dentistry," and gives some good detail around the issue.

For example, we're running short on dentists in the U.S., especially in poorer areas. There's also a section on dental insurance, which is largely disconnected from health insurance, meaning that many people just can't afford to have dental problems taken care of even if they have insurance for medical care.

I can speak to that, since I didn't have dental insurance for years. It was an option at my last job, but it cost enough that I decided to just bet I wouldn't need more done in a given year than the insurance would have come to. This worked out OK for me, because I was fortunate (and I floss diligently, let me put in a plug for flossing), but clearly it creates an incentive to put things off.

I'm not sure if they're nationwide, but at least around here, we sometimes see these TV ads encouraging people to get dental care, with the slogan "Oral health is overall health." (They have this clever bit where the word 'oral' morphs into the word 'overall.') Apparently this slogan is true.

It gives me a new fondness for the dental students who come through the library doing research and dropping off their finished theses. Good work, people! Go out there and care for teeth! Also, recruit more of you!

I will happily help you with your research questions, even though they tend to be brutally unsatisfying because you tend to be looking for very specific topics that it turns out no one has ever written anything about. I'm not sure why, I guess you're just lucky like that.

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1 comment:

erinserb said...

A really good set of articles about American dentistry. I guess there is national dental health insurance in the usual suspect countries - and that is a good thing.

My wife needs a new bottom bridge, but she cannot afford it now. Kind of like the vision insurance thing too!

Yes! I am a public option person and I cannot see anything wrong with having access to the best health/dental care for everyone - oh well, I am turning into a soap box ;-)