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Health Share of Oregon Supports Fluoridation for Portland

August 23, 2012

August 22, 2012 -- The Health Share of Oregon Board of Directors has added its support to the effort by the Everyone Deserves Healthy Teeth Coalition to encourage Portland to add fluoride to the city’s drinking water supply.

“Getting an early start on oral health can help a child start down the right path for overall health for a lifetime,” says Janet Meyer, interim chief executive officer. “The board believes that preventive care, including fluoridated water, good hygiene practices and regular visits to a dental care provider, is the best way to start.”

Formerly Tri-County Medicaid Cooperative, Health Share of Oregon will provide physical and mental health managed care services for Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid) members in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties, effective September 1.

Health Share and other CCOs eventually will also coordinate dental care services for Oregon Health Plan members. But it is concern about overall health that has led the Health Share board to support fluoridation.

For centuries physicians have suspected that oral health is linked to overall health. Recent research has confirmed it, with connections noted between dental disease and heart disease, diabetic complications, stroke, pneumonia and more.

Oregonians may be at greater risk for these conditions because of the state’s poor dental health. Oregon’s children don’t fare nearly as well as those in neighboring states when it comes to dental health. More than one third of Oregon children have untreated tooth decay, a rate that’s more than double the rate among children in Washington.

Improving dental health can also help control health care costs and increase health equity. Some 30 percent of health care costs for children are for treating dental disease, with severe cases treated all too often in the operating room. Poor dental health disproportionally affects people struggling with poverty. Poor children are less likely to have preventive care and more likely to miss school because of dental disease.

In more than 3,000 studies, the overwhelming evidence is that optimally fluoridated water has no negative impact on the 200 million Americans who now drink it, and that it improves a community’s dental health by at least 25 percent. It is the most effective and most affordable answer to the dental health crisis.

Comments

Submitted by Kurt Ferre on Sat, 08/25/2012 - 13:19 Permalink

On cannot have good oral health without good overall health. The cure for oral disease requires an multi pronged approach, just as the disease of diabetes requires. A type 1 diabetic not only needs to take insulin, but he or she needs to eat a balanced diet, exercise, and lose weight. To have good oral health one needs: education, prevention, and access to care. Fluoridation is the FOUNDATION of a sound dental public health strategy to improve the oral health for all citizens in a community, regardless of age, sex, race, nationality, religion, and socio-economic class. Fluoridation is egalitarian access to oral health.
Submitted by Smile Concepts on Fri, 02/15/2013 - 22:15 Permalink

For a good dental health it is necessary to aware people and tell them about the good dental habits. Until or unless people will not itself take care of their health it would be difficult to achieve the overall health of the city.