WASHINGTON (AP) - From cavities to mouth cancer, a ''silent epidemic''
of oral diseases afflicts minorities and low-income Americans even as most
of the nation benefits from healthier teeth and gums, the U.S. surgeon
general said Thursday.
Thanks to fluoridated drinking water and
better dental care, most Americans middle-age or younger can expect to
keep their teeth for life.
Yet dental diseases still threaten the
health of low-income people, who are more likely to lose their teeth, said
David Satcher, the nation's top doctor.
''Those who suffer the
worst oral health are found among the poor of all ages, with poor children
and poor older Americans particularly vulnerable,'' Satcher said in a
report. ''Members of racial and ethnic minority groups also experience a
disproportionate level of oral health problems.''
The government's
first-ever comprehensive look at oral health in America showed that a
combination of social and economic factors - lack of dental insurance,
poor diets, tobacco use, a dearth of minority dentists and lack of
awareness of the importance of healthy teeth - contribute to poor oral
health.
Nearly half of all poor blacks and Hispanics have
untreated tooth decay, compared with 27% of poor whites, the study showed.
Oral problems begin early - more than a third of low-income
children have at least one untreated decayed tooth by the time they are 9
years old, compared with 17% of kids living above the poverty line.
The disparity gets even greater the older kids get.
Over
43% of poor kids have tooth decay by age 17 compared to 23% of kids who
are better off, according to government studies cited in the report.
Meanwhile, tooth problems often go unchecked because children lack
insurance coverage. Uninsured kids are two-and-a-half times less likely to
get dental checkups compared to kids with insurance.
Experts
estimate that as many as 26 million American children have no insurance
coverage for dental care.
Even poor kids who have dental insurance
are not getting the care they need, the report said. The government
estimates that 80% of Medicaid eligible kids don't receive dental care
because few dentists take Medicaid patients and dental care isn't a
priority for poor families.
''Low income kids have very high
levels of coverage because of Medicaid, but they have very few dentist
visits,'' said Burton Edelstein, a pediatric dentist and director of the
Childrens' Dental Health Project in Washington.
The report, an amalgamation of clinical and epidemiological studies,
also looked at disparities in people suffering from oral and throat
cancers, which affects over 30,000 Americans each year and kills more than
8,000.
Tobacco and alcohol use are the primary risk factors for
oral cancers.
Men are more likely to have these cancers than
women, and black men have a much higher rate of oral cancer - 20.8 cases
per 100,000 males a year, versus 14.9 cases for white males.
Blacks are less likely to have these cancers caught at early
stages, so their survival rates are not as good as for whites.
The
report calls for more screening for oral cancers and more studies of
dental health disparities, as well as anti-smoking and water fluoridation
projects in communities that don't have them.
And, of course, it
urges Americans to brush and floss daily.
