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Danica Loring, EFDA, CDA, works as a dental practice manager at Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) Dental Center, a nonprofit in Maine. She helps PCHC achieve its mission of providing comprehensive, integrated primary health care services to improve the health and well-being of patients in the Maine community. Danica’s 15-year career as a dental assistant helped hone her passion for direct patient care. In her new role, she oversees PCHC’s Dental Assisting Training Program, which provides on-the-job training to new dental assistants.

By Stacey Auger, Policy Consultant, CareQuest Institute

What is the oral health industry’s role and responsibility in addressing racism in our country? “In contrast to other disciplines (public health and medicine for example), dentistry as a discipline has been relatively quiet in the space of anti-racism,” said Eleanor Fleming, PhD, DDS, MPH, FICD, assistant dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. “This special issue in many respects fills a void and offers a strategic path forward for dental public health using the lens of anti-racism.”

What adjectives would you use to describe the oral health system? Traditional? Effective? Reliable? One adjective that often gets left out of the conversation: innovative. “There is a lack of innovation in oral health in a couple of ways,” says Kirill Zaydenman, MS, vice president of innovation at our for-profit subsidiary CareQuest Innovation Partners. “One is that dentistry has not kept pace with change in other industries that have been undergoing digital transformation. The other is within public health — it’s a hugely underserved market.”

CareQuest Institute’s grantmaking efforts focus on five cross-cutting strategies: health and racial equity, social determinants of health, community-centered measurement, learning and capacity building, and innovation in oral health. Why those five areas?

By Kelly Schroeder, RDH, MS Like many of you, becoming a health care professional, specifically a dental hygienist, was a dream job for me. The small-town practice I worked for really cared about their employees, patients, and the community. For many years as a clinical dental hygienist, I felt I had found my purpose. I loved my job and my patients, but like every good love story, there was a dark side.

As we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of telehealth to connect patients with health care providers have become clear. Whether it’s telemedicine, teletherapy, or teledermatology, telehealth is here to stay. And that includes teledentistry, which can increase access to oral health care and decrease costs — now and beyond the pandemic.

Medical-dental integration. Dental anxiety. Value-based care. Periodontal therapy. These are just a few of the topics researchers at the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health presented at the National Oral Health Conference (NOHC) last month in Fort Worth, Texas. The annual multi-day conference offers educational sessions and presentations by leaders in dental public health for anyone interested in improving the overall oral health system.

A quick Google search, especially during Mental Health Awareness Month this May, will yield thousands of results about the connection between physical health and mental health. Healthy behaviors — healthy eating, regular exercise, a good night’s rest — result in better mental health for people across their lifespan. But what about oral health? Does a healthy mouth lead to a healthy mind and vice versa? The answer is yes — and the research is growing.

Dental fear and anxiety can pose significant barriers to receiving dental treatment and affect people across socioeconomic and demographic groups.