Dental Care Program Addresses Injustices Facing Urban Poor

A new community program makes important visits to the dentist’s chair easier for low-income area residents.

Dental care, often overlooked as a component of basic health care, does more than maintain a bright smile: it can alleviate a patient’s excruciating pain, aid in nutrition, and, at times, prevent death. Even in wealthy countries, dental coverage for the urban poor can be abysmally deficient, as it was for 12-year-old Deamonte Driver from suburban Maryland, who died Sunday after his toothache led to a brain infection, according to the Washington Post. The Community Dental Program, a new Charlottesville, Virginia-based partnership of dental, health, and community groups, was formed to help prevent such tragedies in the future.

The project provides non-emergency, restorative dental care to area low-income adults with no dental insurance, according to a release from the blue moon fund, which provides financial support for the initiative. “The great thing about this program is that all the partners are doing what they do best,” said Erika Viccellio, executive director of the Charlottesville Free Clinic. “It’s a blessing to partner with all of these local dentists and ensure that those in most need receive restorative care.”

Partnerships like this have enormous potential to address the inequalities facing the world’s urban poor, according to Janice Perlman and Molly O’Meara Sheehan, who co-authored a chapter on fighting poverty and injustice in cities in the Worldwatch Institute report State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future. “There can be no solutions to [urban] poverty or environmental degradation without building on bottom-up, community-based innovations, which are small in scale relative to the magnitude of the problems,” they write.

The long and growing patient waiting list for the Community Dental Program is expected to shorten as the success of the project grows. “More than 30 local dentists have already signed up to see patients in the program,” said Dr. Jay Knight, president of the Charlottesville Albemarle Dental Society. “Since the dental community is committed to providing care to everyone in need, I am confident that this number will grow.”

This story was produced by Eye on Earth, a joint project of the Worldwatch Institute and the blue moon fund. View the complete archive of Eye on Earth stories, or contact Staff Writer Alana Herro at aherro [AT] worldwatch [DOT] org with your questions, comments, and story ideas.