Posts Tagged ‘University of Kentucky’
Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and writes from Fort Hall, Idaho. Comment here.
Mark Trahant
Consider oral health. “Shortages of dental practitioners and affordable dental care are hurting the health of millions of Americans, many of whom live with pain, miss school or work, and, in extreme cases, face life-threatening medical emergencies that result from dental infections. The situation is particularly severe for poor children and families and in communities of color,” writes Burton L. Edelstein, DDS, MPH Columbia University and Children’s Dental Health Project in a Dec. 200, report for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
And, like most health issues, the data shows that Indian Country is at the low end of the spectrum. One study described it this way: “The American Indian / Alaska Native “population has the highest tooth decay rate of any population cohort in the United States: 5 times the US average for children 2–4 years of age. Seventy-nine percent of AIAN children, aged 2–5 years, have tooth decay, with 60% of these children having severe early childhood caries (baby bottle tooth decay). Eighty-seven percent of these children, aged 6–14 years, have a history of decay—twice the rate of dental caries experienced by the general population.”
Tags: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Alaska Dental Society, Alaska Native, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Children’s Dental Health Project, Columbia University, dental care, Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Indian Health Service, Mark Trahant, merican Dental Association, University of Kentucky, University of Washington, W.K. Kellogg Foundation