Tag Archives: dental care

Reporters find stories in efforts to address oral health disparities

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Photo: J. Stephen Conn via Flickr

Poor Americans bear more than their share of oral disease. School children from low-income homes are more than twice as likely to suffer from tooth decay as their more affluent peers, according to federal data.

While Medicaid entitles poor children to dental care, adult dental benefits are treated as optional under the program. It is estimated that the majority of the nation’s 60 million elderly and/or disabled Medicare beneficiaries are dentally uninsured. Continue reading →

Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.

Dentists urged to reduce prescriptions of pre-treatment antibiotics

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Clostridioides difficile

Across America, dentists write about 10% of all antibiotic prescriptions, data show, making them the top specialty prescribers of antibiotics in the U.S. one recent year.

But do the benefits of all these prescriptions outweigh their potential for harm? Amid concerns about antibiotic resistance – and the spread of Clostridioides difficile, a bacterium that causes antibiotic-associated colitis – researchers are saying “no.” Continue reading →

Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.

U.N. official’s tour explores impact of extreme poverty in the United States

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Photo: Omar Bárcena via Flickr

During a two-week U.S. fact-finding tour, Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said he observed scenes of suffering from coast to coast: in homeless encampments in California, in storm-ravaged enclaves in Puerto Rico, and in marginalized communities of the deep South and West Virginia.

A shortage of healthcare, infrastructure and sanitation services in low-income and minority communities are taking a serious toll, Alston said during a Dec. 15 press conference in Washington, D.C., at the conclusion of the tour. Continue reading →

Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.

California looks to improve oral care access for its youngest residents

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Photo: Yoshihide Nomura via Flickr

To help ensure a lifetime of better oral health, experts recommend that babies receive their first dental exam no later than their first birthday.

Such visits serve as an opportunity to provide timely preventive care to small children – and guidance to parents that can help keep their children’s teeth clean and disease-free. Continue reading →

Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.

Changes in health care landscape could mean big stories in oral health

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Photo: Pia Christensen/AHCJPanelist Mary Foley focused on the potential changes in financing of oral health programs that serve the public during a discussion at Health Journalism 2017.

It is hard to know, amid the ongoing battle to reshape the nation’s health care system, what the future holds for dental care.

Panelists at Health Journalism 2017 tackled the unknown yet crucial territory that lies ahead in a session entitled “Oral Health Stories to Watch in 2017.” Speakers encouraged the reporters in the audience to remember to ask good questions about dental services as they cover their beats in the months ahead. Continue reading →

Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.