Smile for Life Oral Health Outreach Program
The Smile for Life Oral Health Outreach Program provides a mobile dental unit that travels within the Washington County school districts at zero cost to the school district and provides onsite dental exams, dental x-rays, dental cleanings, fluoride treatments and dental sealants for children whose parents consent to treatment. This program is important because there is a health need for children’s dental care. Dental care remains one of children’s most prevalent unmet health needs. Poor children suffer twice as much dental caries as their more affluent peers, and their disease is more likely to be untreated. The Oral Health Outreach program increases access to care; provides preventative dental care; health insurance enrollment assistance; education and a dental home; aimed at making a systemic change to improve the oral health of generations to come and reduce the financial burden of emergency dental care on the health system.