• Watch Your Mouth Massachusetts: The Watch Your Mouth Coalition Is Working In Massachusetts, New Hampshire And Maine To Make Children's Oral Health A Priority. Objectives of the Watch Your Mouth Coalition are to Educate the public that tooth decay is the most common childhood disease that can cause diminished school performance and poor overall health. WYM advocates for wider access to preventive services, such as dental sealants and fluoride, and regular dental exams for all children.
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Newsletter

Vol. 3, issue 8
August 2008

Upcoming Events

August is here, and it's time to hit the beach or take a vacation before the summer ends. As you enjoy your summer, stay versed in oral health news by reading the latest Watch Your Mouth campaign newsletter.

In this issue, we highlight a national effort to help uninsured children and families known as the Back-to- School campaign; review a study published in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry connecting oral health to overall health; share framing tips on how to garner support for your issue and minimizing counter argument; and learn more about our partner the: Dorchester Multi Service Center, Healthy Teeth for Tots Program. There are many new resources and events coming up; remember to scroll through the left column for more information.

Covering the Uninsured: Back-To-School Campaign

By: Sarah Snyder, Massachusetts Promise Fellow, Health Care For All

covering the uninsured

As the school year begins this fall, partners in the Back-to-School Campaign work to ensure that children in Massachusetts have access to health coverage and services that will enable them to live healthier lives. Back-to-School (BTS) is a national campaign coordinated in Massachusetts by Health Care For All, in partnership with the Watch Your Mouth campaign. BTS offers support in the form of free and colorful outreach materials, templates for press releases, letters to parents, news articles, and assistance to planning outreach events. Partners in the past have included school nurses, community colleges, churches, YMCAs, adult education centers, and community health centers. To learn how you or your organization can get involved, contact Jennifer Chow at chow@hcfama.org or 617.275.2813. Visit the Covering the Uninsured Back-To-School Website

Oral Health Status and How it Affects Children's School Performance

oral health status

Health professionals are taking a new look at the most neglected part of the body: the mouth. Extensive research tells us that when the mouth is not healthy, neither is the rest of the body. We know that childhood dental disease can affect children's educational progress and most basic daily activities, such as eating and speaking. A study published earlier this year in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry by Blumenshine et al, further confirms this by examining how children's school performance is impacted by their oral health. In this study, school performance is defined by the number of missed school days due to illness.

Blumenshine's study looked at the race, health insurance status, health status and health factors associated with declining school performance. It also looked at how poor oral health status affected school performance even when these issues were ruled out. Looking at nearly 3,000 children in North Carolina, the study concluded that children who have inadequate oral health and general health status did poorly in school. Overall, children with dental disease have a disadvantage: they are less able to succeed in school and keep up with their peers.

These findings reinforce our understanding that oral health status affects the quality of life we can have. As a community, we can improve the oral health status of our children by working with local dental professionals and health centers to increase access to early childhood screenings and dental sealants in schools. To learn how you can help improve the oral health status in your community, contact the Watch Your Mouth campaign at biton@hcfama.org or 617.275.2838. Or visit our website at www.WatchYourMouth.org.

Read the Full Study

The Challenge of Using Fairness to Advance Health Care Reform

For many years, philosophers and social and cognitive scientists have noted the power of "big ideas" or values to organize reasoning and help people make decisions about things in their lives. The FrameWorks Institute refers to these as "Level One" values- indicating the place where all communications must begin. These big values are easy to find in everyday culture, they are the values that we all share about the world that we live in- those of community, leadership, interconnectedness, innovation and the like. By consciously connecting to high-level values in your communications, you tap into a higher level of reasoning and tell the audience what is at stake.

In their research on health care reform, FrameWorks found that advocates often choose the Level One value of Fairness to advance their arguments. While this value has proven useful in some issue areas, it has been shown to bog down progress in health care reform. In this month's FrameByte, read more about the challenges of Fairness as an organizing principle and the recommendations for reframing this important issue.

Read the full E-zine

August Partner Spotlight: Dorchester House Multi Service Center

Dorchester House

By: Giusy Romano-Clarke, M.D. Healthy Teeth for Tots Project Director

Dorchester House Multi Service Center (DHMSC) is a community health center located in Dorchester, Massachusetts. DHMSC serves a racially varied patient population, and most of its clients are families living at or below the poverty line. Dental disease is a significant problem for young children seen at DHMSC, as it is across the Commonwealth In 2002, a survey found early childhood cavities affected 4 out of 10 toddlers and preschoolers seen at the DHMSC. Access to the local dental clinic is difficult due to limited capacity for services and competition with adult patients.

DHMSC created the Healthy Teeth for Tots (HTT) program to address the unmet oral health needs of their young patients. HTT has become a successful state and national model to prevent and treat dental caries, the most common chronic disease of childhood. HTT strategies include: delivery of age appropriate oral health information to parents during routine well child pediatric visits, assessment of a child's risk for early tooth decay, fluoride varnish treatment for children at high risk, referral to a dentist at the first signs of disease, and transition to a permanent dental home by the child's 3rd birthday.

The implementation of the HTT program has resulted in increased parental awareness about oral health, behavioral change in favor of more "tooth friendly" habits (decreased number of children going to bed with a bottle, decreased sugary substances consumption, increased prevalence of tooth brushing), decreased tooth decay experience, and has doubled young children's access to a permanent dental home. The HTT program staff's collaboration with the MassHealth Oral Health Director has led to the approval of reimbursement for preventive oral health services to pediatric providers. Planning for the implementation of the HTT program strategies statewide is underway, so stay tuned for more information by the end of the summer!!! For more information, contact HTT project Director, Giusy Romano-Clarke, M.D. at giusy.romano-clarke@dorchesterhouse.org.

Check out the Dorchester House website

Happy reading!

Thanks,

Czarina



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