A new American website called End Cavities is actively promoting prevention of dental decay in children. This website is organized by the Children’s Dental Health Project and it is well done and very worthwhile.
My guess is that End Cavities responds to the growing coverage of children’s dental care by Medicaid. Again, another very worthwhile initiative.
But in an aging, highly medicated community called America and Canada, it seems a key question is: what about the adults too? Don’t they also need to end cavities, and crowns, and root canals, and implants?
The Children’s Dental Health Project found in a recent survey of 1,000 American adults that more than 40% felt they had little or no control over dental decay in their children.
My sense is that an equal, if not greater number, would express the same hopelessness and/or unknowing-ness when it came to preventing adult dental decay.
And that ignorance about prevention of adult dental decay is the crux of why American dental incomes (and those in Canada and Europe too) have fallen continuously for almost 10 years. If the adult patient believes that dental decay is inevitable, and expensive surgery unavoidable, why would he/she go to the dentist?
In our surveys of adult patients in Canadian and UK waiting rooms, we found that almost all adults want to know about pathways to better oral health. The majority routinely said they would read newspaper ads about dental practices offering more preventive care. The majority always picked Prevora as their choice of care.
Broadcasting the importance and approach to better oral health in children is needed and wanted. But the same applies to our aging community who needs and will pay for more affordable dental care called prevention.
For more information, please visit: http://partnersinprevention.ca/but-what-about-the-adults/.
By: Ross Perry
SOURCED: Partners In Prevention – www.partnersinprevention.ca
