By SAM STITES/Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon is facing a dental health epidemic, and a lack of access to care is at the root of the problem for many children, rural residents and low-income families.
This month Oregon legislators will consider improving access to education and services in schools, as well as create licensing for a new type of practitioner who can complete many of the same tasks as a dentist, but at a lower cost.
In the House, the Oregon Community Foundation has partnered with Rep. Cedric Hayden, R-Roseburg, and Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, to pass the “Healthy Teeth, Bright Futures” campaign. The program would direct Oregon school districts to include age-appropriate dental health instruction as part of their health education.
It would also create a pilot program under the Oregon Health Authority to bolster school dental health services.
Oregon Health and Sciences University says 40 percent of Medicaid-enrolled children didn’t receive any dental services in 2018. Access to service varied between counties, and the study shows 21 percent difference between Malheur and Columbia counties.
According to Melissa Freeman, the community foundation’s director of strategic projects, Oregon is struggling from an oral disease epidemic with 49 percent of children having a cavity by age 9. And two in every nine children have untreated cavities.
“Unfortunately, 17,000 children in Oregon have rampant decay as classified by the Oregon Health Authority, which means seven or more untreated cavities,” Freeman said.
Those numbers are even more dire among children of color, children in rural areas and of low-income, according to Chris Coughlin, legislative director at nonprofit children’s advocacy group Children First for Oregon.
“There are still real barriers keeping families from getting the preventative dental care that kids need to be healthy and do well in school, and we know specifically that certain populations are impacted most,” Coughlin said.
The issue is important in the context of helping Oregon’s kids remain in school. According to the community foundation, dental pain is a significant cause of absenteeism for school children in Oregon.
“Eating, sleeping, concentrating at school are all difficult with a cavity problem,” Freeman said.
Several years ago, the foundation starting awarding grants for school-based dental health services. So far, 275 schools across 22 counties have benefitted.
The foundation wants the expansion now to implement school-based dental health services in all Oregon schools.
Dental therapy
In the Senate, Sen. Laurie Monnes-Anderson, D-Gresham, is shepherding her own bill to allow the Oregon Dentistry Board to issue dental therapy licenses and allow dental therapy education programs to be built throughout the state.
Dental therapists are mid-level practitioners, similar to a physician’s assistant in medicine. They provide a range of critical routine and preventative services such as oral evaluation and assessment, treatment plan formulation, non–surgical extraction of diseased teeth.
Dr. Miranda Davis, a Washington dentist with the Puyallup Tribal Health Authority who helps oversee a pilot program in Portland, believes the new licensing could give many Oregonians access to lower-cost dental health services, especially in rural areas.
Davis believes dental therapists can meet most dental needs in small communities where residents otherwise have to drive hundreds of miles for care. She pointed to the success of the program started in Minnesota back in 2009. Minnesota has since licensed more than 100 dental therapists.
“It’s an efficient model of care where you have specially trained staff to complete these smaller tasks,” Davis said.
The Oregon Capital Bureau in Salem is staffed by reporters from EO Media and Pamplin Media Group and provides state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com