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In 2000, United States Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D.,
Ph.D., published the first Surgeon General's Report on Oral
Health in America. According to the report, oral diseases are
progressive and cumulative, and become more complex over time.
They can affect our ability to eat, the foods we choose, how
we look, and the way we communicate. These diseases can affect
economic productivity and compromise our ability to work at
home, at school, or on the job.
• Dental caries (tooth decay) is the single most common
chronic childhood disease--five times more common than asthma.
More than 50 percent of five- to nine-year-olds has at least
one cavity or filling, and that proportion increases to 78 percent
among 17-year-olds. These figures represent improvements in
the oral health of children compared to a generation ago.
• In Hawaii tooth decay among children is 100 percent
higher than children on the mainland U.S.
• There are striking disparities in dental disease by
income: Poor children suffer twice as much dental caries as
their more affluent peers, and their disease is more likely
to be untreated.
• These poor-nonpoor differences continue into adolescence:
One out of four children in America is born into poverty, and
children living below the poverty line (annual income of $17,000
for a family of four) have more severe and untreated decay.
• Professional care is necessary for maintaining oral
health, yet 25 percent of poor children have not seen a dentist
before entering kindergarten. Nearly one in five children in
Hawaii below age nine has never been to a dentist.
• Medical insurance is a strong predictor of access to
dental care. Uninsured children are 2.5 times less likely than
insured children to receive dental care. Children from families
without dental insurance are three times more likely to have
dental needs than children with either public or private insurance.
For each child without medical insurance, there are at least
2.6 children without dental insurance.
• As of 1997, as many as 41 percent of the uninsured population
in Hawaii was children, compared to 25 percent for the United
States as a whole.
• Medicaid has not been able to fill the gap in providing
dental care to poor children. Less than one in five Medicaid-covered
children received a single dental visit in a recent year-long
study period. Although new programs such as the State Children's
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) may increase the number of
insured children, many will still be left without effective
dental coverage.
• The social impact of oral diseases in children is substantial.
More than 51 million school hours are lost each year to dental-related
illness. Poor children suffer nearly 12 times more restricted-activity
days than children from higher-income families. Pain and suffering
due to untreated diseases can lead to problems in eating, speaking,
and attending to learning.
Copyright 2003 Healthy Smiles Hawaii
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The
need for continuous dental health education in Hawaii, especially
among children, is essential. These statistics are real and
startling:
 Tooth
decay is nearly 100% higher among Hawaii children as
compared with children on the U.S. mainland.
Hawaii
children ages five through nine have an average of four decayed
teeth, while the average mainland child has two decayed
teeth.
Nearly
one in five Hawaii children below the age of nine has
never been to a dentist.
In
1999, 50.5% of Hawaii schoolchildren below the age of
12 had not visited a dentist or a dental clinic in the past
year.
The
Hawaii Health Performance Plan (HHPP) states:
• 15.85% of Hawaii five-year-olds have Baby Bottle
Tooth Decay, as compared with 5% of U.S. mainland five-year-olds.
Native Hawaiians have a rate of 20.79%, Filipinos 32.19%, and
Molokai children 32.67%.
• 18.54% of Hawaii six-year-olds bear cavity-free
permanent teeth, while 94.4% of their mainland counterparts
can claim the same.
• 72.7% of six- to eight-year-olds in Hawaii had
one or more cavities as compared with the national
average of 35% for the same population. |
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