• 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 5
May 2008

Upcoming Events

Greetings!

Here come the May flowers and another eventful month for Watch Your Mouth. Read on to learn about an article from the Health Affairs Journal highlighting the need of oral health policies to increase access to dental services; learn to reframe the conversation with the FrameWorks Institute by learning techniques to avoid common communication traps; and help spread the word on an exciting job opportunity with Watch Your Mouth. We'll also hear from our partner spotlight, Boston Public Health Commission HIV/Dental program.

Last but not least, we invite you to register today for Health Care For All's annual fundraiser event, For The People: A Celebration of Health Care Leaders. Speaking of events and resources, don't forget to check out the left side bar for more information.

Giving Policy Some Teeth: The Importance of Making Oral health policies a priority

kids at school

For every person without health insurance, there are twice as many who don't have access to dental insurance. Yet the importance of oral health has not resonated in the health care policy arena. According to the Health Affairs Journal article, Giving Policy Some Teeth: Routes to Reducing Disparities in Oral Health,"[Oral health is] not accorded the same importance in health care policy as is general health."

The public strongly supports addressing unmet dental care needs. This article highlights the latest Research America poll, which found that 97 percent of the American public viewed oral health as an important priority and saw its connection to overall health. Dental decay is a disease caused by a bacterial infection in the mouth, and is the most common, chronic childhood disease.

Five times more common than asthma, dental decay has a long-term negative impact on children's productivity in school and increases their health risks to chronic diseases as adults. Fortunately, there are solutions that communities can work on to make children's oral health a statewide priority and this article reinforces some of these effective policies. The article's authors recommend policies that highlight prevention and treatment of dental decay in school settings through early screenings and treatment to assess children's oral health status prior to entering schools, and expanding existing pre-school and school based oral health programs. The authors also proposed system based solutions to improve government programs such as the State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) by mandating dental benefits in SCHIP and eliminating co-payments for restorative dental services. To learn more about these and other policy solutions, read the Full Article

Don't Think About Elephants: Avoid this Trap in your Communications

Frameworks

Imagine for a moment that you and your friends were debating where to eat for dinner. Typical in any debate, one of your friends has an opposing view of where to go and explained why restaurant A is the best. After hearing the opposing view, you decide to advocate for restaurant B by stating why restaurant A is NOT ideal. When the rest of your friends cast their vote, they all prefer restaurant A over restaurant B. Although you accept your loss, you wonder how you lost that debate.

You have just experienced a case of "thinking about the elephants". By repeating the opposing point of view, you have reinforced cues that add value and unintended credibility to restaurant A. Once you have conjured up the dominant frame to your audience (restaurant A is best), your friends stopped processing new information (restaurant B is better). A reactive way of communicating is a common practice among many advocates. But fortunately, there are ways to avoid this trap in your communications. Read on to learn more about the tactics that help you understand why reinforcing the dominant frame does more harm than good and learn how to reframe the conversation to win that next "debate". Read the full E-zine

Join the Watch Your Mouth Team!

Watch Your Mouth

Watch Your Mouth is a dynamic, statewide public awareness campaign with more than 1500 supporters including: consumers, advocates, health care professionals, academics, and insurers. In collaboration with the Frameworks Institute, the campaign generates a variety of widely distributed campaign documents.

We are looking to fill the Oral Health Communications Coordinator position, with the primary responsibility for visioning and managing the daily operations of this multi-faceted, statewide oral health public awareness campaign. Health Care For All (HCFA) serves as the primary staffing resource for the Massachusetts Watch Your Mouth Campaign.

Click here to learn more about this opportunity.

May Partner Spotlight: Boston Public Health Commission HIV/Dental Program

boston public health commission

by Helene Bednarsh

Created in 1990, the HIV Dental Ombudsperson Program (HIV DOP), within the Boston Public Health Commission, is a comprehensive oral health access program for persons living with HIV in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire. The HIV DOP is funded by the City of Boston with Ryan White Part A funds from HRSA and by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Major program activities are to facilitate access to oral health care and to educate consumers and providers. Our goal is to reduce or remove barriers to accessing oral health care. Most of our clients are without a third party payer or have limited coverage for services that restore function and maintain oral health.

HIV DOP promotes sound oral health and access to care in community-based, non-discriminatory settings, including public and private dental practices and dental institutions. Clients enrolled in the program have access to routine and emergency dental care. Clients are encouraged to establish a medical as well as dental relationship with their dentists. We offer training to our providers, the next is an infection control update. Providers are encouraged to use www.hivdent.org also as a way to stay informed on issues and to be able to access experts in oral medicine and other disciplines. Oral health is an important contributor to overall health for HIV+ individuals. The HIV DOP works with over 400 AIDS Service Organizations, medical and dental providers and other relevant agencies in the area. Over the past 17 years HIV DOP has provided over 35,000 services to approximately 4,500 clients. To enroll as a provider or for more information please contact us at 617-534- 2344 or email to aids@bphc.org.

Learn more about the HIV/Dental program

You are Cordially Invited to Health Care For All's Annual Fundraiser

health care for all

Health Care For All's annual fundraiser, For The People: A Celebration of Health Care Leaders honors champions for their work in the Massachusetts health care system. This year's event will take place at the Westin Copley Place Boston from 4:30pm - 8:00pm on Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Health Care For All is pleased to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Dennis Keefe, Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Health Alliance, for his 30 years of dedication to serving hard to reach populations in the health care system.

Over 600 guests including government officials, consumers and business people plan to attend the event. With your support, Health Care For All will have the resources needed to achieve its goals. Please contact Marla Stein, Associate Director of Development at 617-275-2926 or stein@hcfama.org to learn more of how to take part in the event.

Click here to Learn More or to Register for this event

Enjoy the sunshine! Remember to let me know if your organization has any upcoming oral health events to share.

Thanks, Czarina



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Watch Your Mouth Massachusetts is supported by grants from the Oral Health Foundation and Dental Services of Massachusetts.
Watch Your Mouth Coalition.