The Status of Kids’ Dental Care in California

Any guesses as to how many kids have cavities in CA? It may be hard to say with certainty, but some experts in the state think as many as one-half of kindergartners have cavities – and this issue, plus numerous other dental-related problems, causes a significant number of kids to miss school. These problems are highlighted in Viji Sundaram’s article, Kids’ Dental Decay Takes a Bite out of School Attendance, from New America Media. The article is the result of a partnership with our foundation.

Since it’s National Children’s Dental Health Month, we thought we would note some related data from kidsdata.org. Unfortunately, California lacks a broad array of locally available, statewide measures of kids’ dental health, but what we have from the California Health Interview Survey still helps illuminate how California is faring. For example:

• About one in five kids in CA lack dental insurance, according to 2007 data, and county-level percentages vary greatly across the state.
• Here in California, it’s not unusual for kids to have never seen a dentist. These same 2007 data show that 13% of California’s kids – 1 in 8 – have never been to the dentist.

Fortunately, there are numerous statewide organizations focusing attention and resources onto dental care for California’s kids, including the Dental Health Foundation and the California Dental Association. And on the local level, there are some excellent models – such as San Mateo County’s participation in the national Give Kids a Smile Day, which offers free dental care for the kinds of kids noted in the data above – those who lack insurance or otherwise have limited access to a dentist.

Tags: Health Observances

Posted by Andy Krackov

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 6:56 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.