Nation's dentists will care for an estimated 1 million kids on Feb. 21

America's dentists are making it easier on February 21 for nearly a million underserved children to receive needed dental services at more than 5,000 locations throughout the country on the ADA's first Give Kids A Smile/National Children's Dental Access Day. But ADA leaders acknowledge that much more needs to be done before they can declare victory in the war against untreated dental disease in children.

"We've been overwhelmed by the response from our members -- we may see more than a million children on a single day," said ADA President T. Howard Jones, DMD. "But until this country gets serious about ending what we consider to be a national disgrace, children will continue to suffer needlessly with dental disease."

Give Kids A Smile/National Children's Dental Access Day is a nationwide effort by the ADA, state and local dental societies, thousands of individual dentists, and corporate sponsors, that will provide free oral health education, screening and treatment services to children from low-income families.

But equally important, organizers hope to increase awareness of the vast amount of untreated dental disease among the nation's children.

"We refuse to accept the fact that in 21st Century America, thousands upon thousands of children can't eat or sleep properly, can't pay attention in school, can't smile because of untreated dental disease that should have been prevented and now should be treated," said Dr. Jones.

In his landmark report, "Oral Health in America," U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher said oral health care is the most prevalent unmet health need among American children, calling oral disease a "silent epidemic." Children from low-income families in particular face barriers to access to dental care, including lack of health insurance and underfunding of state and federal public health insurance programs that are supposed to help them obtain dental care.

According to the surgeon general's report, children with no medical insurance are 2.5 times less likely than insured children to receive dental care. And children with no dental insurance are three times more likely to have an unmet dental need. The report's review of state Medicaid dental programs revealed chronic underfunding, which deters dentists from participating in the programs. On average, state Medicaid agencies contribute only about two percent of their child health expenditures to dental care. A survey by the ADA revealed that only about 26 percent of responding dentists regularly treat Medicaid patients.

"We don't need every dentist to participate in Medicaid. But we do need the states to make some commonsense reforms that will make it possible for more of us to do so," said Dr. Jones. Give Kids A Smile will help nearly a million children on this one day, but our larger purpose will be to deliver the message that the dental profession alone cannot eliminate these barriers to dental care.

Dr. Jones said dentists already deliver a substantial amount of donated and non-reimbursed dental care to children. In 1996, non-reimbursed care amounted to $2.6 billion, or about 19 percent of all children's dental care, according to a report in the April 2002 Journal of the American Dental Association. Another ADA study found that the amount of care that dentists give away exceeds the total amount funded by government.

"For lower-income children, donated and non-reimbursed care by dentists is even more significant, reaching over 40 percent of per patient spending that below-poverty-level children received in 1996," explained Dr. Jones. "This represents a remarkable contribution by the nation's dental professionals. But we know that charity alone will never fix the problem, because charity is not a health care system."

For more information about oral health care and the ADA, visit
www.ada.org.

Crest Healthy Smiles 2010 is proud to be the national sponsor of Give Kids a Smile. As the only consumer products sponsor of the national access day, Crest has donated more than 460,000 dental kits which include Crest toothpaste, toothbrushes and educational materials. In total, Crest Healthy Smiles 2010 will provide dental kits to over 900 Give Kids a Smile professional programs including over 200 dental societies.

Crest Healthy Smiles 2010 and the ADA share a common mission to increase access to affordable dental care to underserved communities in an effort to improve the oral health of children in need. Based on the principle that good oral health is integral to overall health, Crest Healthy Smiles 2010 combines the passionate vision of Crest with the resources of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and other leading members of the dental community to affect real change in the state of the country's oral health by 2010. Crest is also working with dental schools and local communities to sponsor mobile dental clinics that bring full service dental support to areas in need, as well as building upon its 40-year tradition of broad-based in-school health education programs which reach 90 percent of first graders. The program will reach more than 50 million children and their families over the next ten years.

DEXIS Digital X-ray is contributing 50 digital x-ray systems as well as 50 personnel to assist in capturing radiographs for Give Kids A Smile programs nationwide. The digital x-ray system produces the image within seconds allowing more rapid diagnosis. The dentists are then able to treat, and in almost all cases, provide full preventive and restorative care to more children who attend these designated Give Kids A Smile events.

As a national and local co-sponsor of Give Kids a Smile, Ivoclar Vivadent will donate substantial amounts of preventive and restorative dental supplies to dentists participating in Give Kids a Smile events. Five thousand kits containing cavity varnish, sealant, composite and amalgam were contributed by Ivoclar Vivadent to Give Kids a Smile participants.

Sullivan-Schein Dental (SSD), a Henry Schein, Inc. company, is the American Dental Association's exclusive Give Kids A Smile partner in the distribution of professional products to program participants. SSD and 43 of its dental product manufacturer partners contributed significant quantities of supplies, and in some cases equipment, to 41 community-based programs across the country. Each program received professional products to be used by the dental team volunteers in providing a full spectrum of oral health care for 200-300 children.