Pew’s Children’s Dental Campaign promotes cost-effective policies to expand access to dental care and ensure millions more children receive the basic care they need to grow, learn, and lead healthy lives.
Why Dental Care Matters
Dental care is the greatest unmet need among children. In 2009, more than 16 million low-income children went without care. Tooth decay affects nearly 60 percent of kids. If untreated, the consequences can be painful and disruptive to learning and daily activities. In extreme cases, untreated decay can lead to serious, potentially life-threatening infections.
The Dental Care Policies We Promote
Our research and advocacy efforts focus on four efficient, cost-effective strategies:
- Expanding the number of professionals who can provide high-quality dental care to low-income children;
- Ensuring that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program work better for kids and for providers so that insurance coverage translates into real care;
- Expanding access to fluoridated water; and
- Increasing sealant programs for kids who need them most.
How We Conduct Our Work
We work with lawmakers; government officials; dental providers; national, state, and local organizations; researchers; and the private sector, targeting states in which policy changes can dramatically improve children’s lives. For example, Pew is working in several states to explore the creation of new types of dental providers—similar to nurse practitioners in the medical field—to work in collaboration with dentists and expand care for underserved kids.
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The LATEST from the Project
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- Data Visualizations
- Children's Dental Campaign
Water Fluoridation: Many Still Don’t Receive Its Benefits
Millions of Americans do not have access to fluoridated water in their communities, leading to higher rates of tooth decay and greater costs to taxpayers.
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- Issue Brief
- Children's Dental Campaign
Dental Therapists in New Zealand: What the Evidence Shows
This brief provides an overview of New Zealand’s use of dental therapists to provide care for children, and offers insights for U.S. policymakers about how midlevel providers can expand children’s access to dental care, prevent and treat tooth decay, and improve public health. more
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- Project Update
- Children's Dental Campaign
Working With Midlevel Providers: Dentists' Perspectives
Midlevel dental providers perform preventive care and routine restorative duties, such as filling cavities. Although they work in more than 50 countries, including Canada and Britain, Minnesota and Alaska are the two states in which midlevel dental providers are licensed to work as part of the dental team. In Minnesota, dental therapists work in a variety of settings. Two dentists who supervise these practitioners in Minnesota share their perspectives. more
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- Media Coverage
- Children's Dental Campaign
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Minnesota Dental Therapy Model Goes Nationwide
Christy Fogarty was certified Feb. 15 as the state’s first advanced dental therapist, which is reason to cheer unless you’re 7 year old Tia Seaberry. Tia, wearing pink sequined boots and bluejeans on a recent Wednesday morning, will be forgiven
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- Media Coverage
- Children's Dental Campaign
Baltimore Sun: Advocates, Insurers Duel Over Cost of Child Dental Coverage
Health advocates are concerned that new guidance from the Obama administration could make it more expensive for some low- and middle-income parents to pay for dental insurance for their children once the new health care law takes effect next year.
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