While oral healthcare has dramatically improved over the past 20 years, especially in digital technology and restorative dentistry, access to routine and preventative care remains a significant problem in the United States.
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Report contributors from CU Anschutz
Judith Albino, PhD, president emerita and professor emerita, co-project director of the Oral Health report. Patricia Braun, MD, professor, pediatrics-general pediatrics. Angela Brega, PhD, associate professor, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health. Mark Deutchman, MD, professor, family medicine. Bruce Dye, DDS, MPH, scientific editor and co-project director of the Oral Health report. Anita Duhl Glicken, MSW, associate dean emerita and professor. Denise Kassebaum, DDS, MS, dean, CU School of Dental Medicine. Spero M. Manson, PhD, distinguished professor of public health and psychiatry and director, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health. Joan O’Connell, PhD, associate professor, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health Tamanna Tiwari, MPH, MDS, BDS, assistant professor, Department of Community Dentistry and Population Health, and associate director, Center for Oral Disease Prevention and Population Health Research. Anne Wilson, DDS, MS, professor and Delta Dental of Colorado Endowed Chairperson, Department of Pediatric Dentistry. |
That is one of the key messages in a new report by the National Institutes of Health. The report – Oral Health in America: Advances and Challenges – is a follow-up to the 2000 Surgeon General report on the state of the country’s oral health. Almost a dozen multidisciplinary experts at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus contributed to the new report, including co-project directors Bruce Dye, DDS, MPH, and Judith Albino, president emerita at the University of Colorado and professor emerita at CU Anschutz.
Dye, previously director of the Dental Public Health and Health Informatics Fellowship at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, came to the CU School of Dental Medicine in October. He is the Delta Dental Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Caries Prevention and professor and chair of the Department of Community Dentistry and Population Health.
Dye said the report was a massive project, involving over 300 experts nationwide. “In the dental world, this is probably one of the most important things that happens in a decade because it really provides guidance on dental research, education and practice,” Dye said. “Maybe only three or four other schools nationwide had as many participants as the University of Colorado. We are well-represented.”
Below, Dye shares his thoughts on some of the findings in the new report as well as the general state of oral healthcare in the United States.