In 2019, data collected by the Migration Policy Institute showed that 20.7 million immigrants in the United States had limited English proficiency (LEP). Yet, despite government mandates, only 68.8% of hospitals offer language services to their patients.
Strengthening the ways in which children in our neighborhoods have access to quality dental care can be greatly influenced by practicing dentists in the area. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children from low-income families and ethnic minorities have been shown to have substandard oral hygiene, less …
Deamonte Driver was a 12-year-old African American child from Maryland who died from a tooth infection on Feb. 25, 2007. Ever since his mom was unable to find a Medicaid dental provider in his low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhood, he has stood as an example for how severe oral health disparities can be for disadvantaged children in the United States, specifically those from a non-white race or ethnicity.
The World Health Organization defines health policy as “…decisions, plans and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific health care goals within a society.” These political, economic and social policies seek to improve patient safety, promote healthy outcomes and achieve quality standards.
You read a restaurant review on Yelp. You survey the menu and ask a friend about their favorite dish. You may even ask the waiter for more information about the ingredients. Who would have thought that going out to dinner would require so much research? Informally, we use research to help us make decisions in our daily lives. Formally, research is used to gather information and discover associations between topics. With an interest in learning more about underserved populations, I used research techniques to explore barriers to oral health for Latinos in eastern North Carolina from the perspective of community health workers.
My patient was escorted to our urgent care clinic wearing an ankle monitor. Her chief complaint was that she felt pain around every tooth. When I took a closer look, the source of her pain became apparent. She had a mouth full of non-functional root tips. Almost every root tip showed signs of infection. My patient was from a local drug rehabilitation center, and she was 10 months sober from a heroin addiction. As a result, she wasn’t allowed any prescription narcotics or nitrous oxide, as instructed by her program due to fear of relapse.
