February 19, 2003 ( http://www.latc.com/2003/02/19/special_sect/your_health.story01.html )
By Cynthia Marshall Schuman / Special to the Town Crier
It's the single most common chronic childhood disease, and more than 70,000 children in Santa Clara County alone are at risk of developing it. The Surgeon General calls it a silent epidemic. The problem: tooth decay.
While even the worst dental problems are unlikely to kill anyone, they can cause unnecessary pain and taint a child's school attendance record.
A study by the Washington, D.C., think tank, The Urban Institute, recently reported that children miss a staggering 52 million hours of school each year due to tooth decay and other dental problems.
Worse still, even though baby teeth fall out and are eventually replaced by permanent teeth, not caring for primary teeth can cause long-lasting damage to the mouth.
"There's a whole generation of patients I treat that, by the time they were 9 years old, they'd had their first molars pulled out. Then the second molars come in and they're in the wrong spot. Then the bite collapses somewhere in their 20s or 30s; they have that fixed with bridge work, but eventually they have to be replaced.
"It's a vicious cycle, and many of them end up losing teeth," said Dr. Jim Stephens, a Palo Alto dentist.
Spreading the good word about children's dental care is the goal of Stephens and other dentists nationwide who are participating in Children's Dental Health Month.
During the last two weeks of this month, some 30 local dentists and 40 dental hygiene students will be visiting second-graders at 27 elementary schools in Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto.
It might seem hard to believe that cities as wealthy and educated as these could need a campaign aimed at improving children's dental health.
Indeed, the Surgeon General's "Report on Oral Health" found that "poor children suffer twice as much dental caries as their more affluent peers, and their disease is more likely to be untreated."
But wealth isn't the only thing that determines a child's dental health.
"There are different priorities among some of the cultures," said Dr. David Lees, director of the Children's Dental Health Initiative, a program administered through the San Jose-based foundation The Health Trust.
"We find that some ethnicities really don't value dental care as much as others, and a lot of times we don't see families and children accessing care until they have an emergency," Lees said.
So the primary objective of classroom visits is to correct misplaced priorities and to reinforce the habits of those who already understand the benefits of ongoing dental care.
Dentists and hygienists will be discussing the importance of caring for one's teeth and fielding questions about dental care.
They will also be passing out goodie bags filled with toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, bookmarks and stickers.
Some local dentists will open their offices for one day this month to pre-screened, low-income children who need dental treatment. Like the classroom visits, this effort is part of a national campaign sponsored by the American Dental Association.
"Last year we had 49 dentists throughout Santa Clara County open up their offices and their hearts to treat 485 kids that day. It was estimated that over $150,000 worth of dentistry was donated that day," Lees said.
The dentists work hard, but they take a lot away from the experience, too. "Kids at that age really embrace the fact that someone's going to come to talk to them," Stephens said.
He explained that for the children, this is a chance to learn about dental health in a friendly, familiar environment, rather than at home or in some doctor's office.
"They are so enthusiastic about it; that's the part that's really fun," Stephens said.
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