Access to preventive and oral health care services in many areas of our state remains problematic. This paper discusses oral health needs of North Carolinians and how a new model of dental education at East Carolina University addresses these issues by providing care where it is most needed.

BACKGROUND Disparities in utilization of oral healthcare services have been attributed to socioeconomic and individual behavioral factors. Parents' socioeconomic status, demographics, schooling, and perceptions of oral health may influence their children's use of dental services. This cross-sectional study assessed the relationships between socioeconomic and psychosocial factors and the utiliza...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the dental health services for children in a health center. The samples were 316 children who had 3-year-old dental examination at a health center in Tokyo. The analysis was carried out by a computer using the results of the children's oral status and of their mothers', questionnaires and past records showing when and how many times they had attended su...

BACKGROUND The aim of the study is to reduce the high prevalence of tooth decay in children in a remote, rural Indigenous community in Australia, by application of a single annual dental preventive intervention. The study seeks to (1) assess the effectiveness of an annual oral health preventive intervention in slowing the incidence of dental caries in children in this community, (2) identify th...

PURPOSE This paper describes the Preventive Services Program (PSP), a community based oral health program model which engages volunteers to provide preventive services and education for underserved children in Missouri. In 2006, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services created a program for children designed to use a systems approach for population-based prevention of oral disease....

Reasons for health disparities may include neighborhood-level factors, such as availability of health services, social norms, and environmental determinants, as well as individual-level factors. Investigating health inequalities using nationally or locally representative data often requires an approach that can accommodate a complex sampling design, in which individuals have unequal probabiliti...

The Medicaid Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) benefit offers health care coverage specifically targeted to meet the needs to low-income children and children with disabilities. This article provides a brief overview of EPSDT and then discusses how states are working to bring vision, hearing, and oral health services to children through EPSDT.

OBJECTIVES The study sought to determine barriers to accessing oral health services amongst the elderly residing in retirement villages in Johannesburg. The objectives were to determine the normative and perceived oral health needs, the barriers experienced and the predictors of oral health utilisation. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a cross-sectional study. Three hundred and eight (n=308) pa...

Background: Understanding problems of access to oral health services requires knowledge of factors that determine access. This study aimed to evaluate factors that determine access to oral health services among children aged <12 years in Peru between 2014 and 2015. Methods: We performed a secondary data analysis of 71,614 Peruvian children aged <12 years and their caregivers. Data were obtained...

In 2004, the National Oral Health Policy (PNSB) - Smiling Brazil was launched. Its guidelines seek to qualify Primary Health Care, ensure comprehensive actions, work on the basis of health surveillance, plan actions in accordance with the epidemiology and information available on the territory, financing and scheduling the research agenda so that the work can be based on scientific evidence. Th...