The Lion's Pride Volume 9 (January 2018) | Page 54

adults miss literally millions of hours of school and work due to dental
disease or visits (Sanders, 2012). This shows that there is a real impact
on people who have poor dental care. There are significant barriers to
proper dental care for low-income and minority families in the US: high
costs, language and cultural barriers, transportation challenges, and
difficulty finding work and childcare arrangements (Sanders, 2012).
While it’s true that these barriers apply in some degree to any person
who needs dental care, they disproportionately affect low-income and
minority populations because they have more limited resources to
overcome these barriers.
Populations like low-income families, minorities, and people with
special health needs face tougher challenges in receiving dental care. As
the US Surgeon General said in 2000, “there are profound and
consequential disparities in the oral health of our citizens” (US
Department of Health and Human Services, 2000); and the populations
who need health services the most, the ones who experience oral disease
at higher rates, receive the least attention under the current US health
and dental care system (Sanders, 2012). Children from these
disproportionately impacted groups are particularly vulnerable to poor
oral health outcomes and they have higher rates of “unmet health needs”
(Mouradian et al., 2000). Understanding the shortcomings in health care
coverage and who is impacted is important because it helps inform