Articles
Wisdom Tooth Moves Online!
How to Subscribe to Wisdom Tooth
Tips to Evaluate Oral Health Care Information
Resource for Teachers
Dental Problems Can Hinder Kids' Learning in School
Are Cavity Rates Rising?

Wisdom Tooth Moves Online!

As Bob Dylan sang, "The times, they are a 'changing." This marks the last printed issue of Wisdom Tooth. The publication goes online in February 2003. We hope you make the move with us.

The new Wisdom Tooth will be published four times a year - twice as frequently as the print version. We will continue our mission of providing teachers, school nurses and others with valuable information related to children's dental health. The only changes are that we will be doing it more often, and online.

The online edition will feature ideas and strategies for incorporating dental health curricula in the classroom. It will also identify helpful dental health-related Web sites that you can share with students. Although Wisdom Tooth is written primarily for educators, an online subscription will be available to anyone who requests it. Subscriptions are free.

Please share Wisdom Tooth subscription information with other teachers, students, parents, and anyone else you think might be interested!

How to Subscribe to Wisdom Tooth

A Wisdom Tooth subscription is free and available to anyone who requests it. To sign up for your free subscription, go to www.deltadentalnj.com and click on Kid's Club at the bottom of the home page. Then enter your e-mail address in the Wisdom Tooth subscription box. You may unsubscribe to Wisdom Tooth at any time.

The first issue will arrive in your e-mail inbox in February 2003. Please note: Current Wisdom Tooth subscribers must sign up for the online version of Wisdom Tooth in order to continue their subscription. This marks the final issue of the printed version of Wisdom Tooth.

We do not sell, rent, or disclose e-mail addresses to third parties. Therefore, you will not receive unsolicited e-mail ("spam") as a result of subscribing to Wisdom Tooth.

Tips to Evaluate Oral Health Care Information

The volume of oral health information available through the media and the Internet can be overwhelming. The American Dental Association (ADA) developed these tips to help you evaluate the quality of what you read and hear.

Qualifications
Examine the source of the information to determine if the individuals or organizations are qualified on the topic and credible. Questions to consider include:

• What are the qualifications of the person or organization?
• Is this person a practicing dentist or does this organization work with dentists?
• What type of scientific or health care expertise do they have?
• Does this person have a dental or medical degree?
• Did the information come from an objective source, such as the Food and Drug Administration, a medical or academic institution, or a well-known scientific or medical publication?

Motivations
Always question the motivations of the information source. The types of questions you should ask include:

• Why is this person or organization speaking about this topic?
• Is the source an individual or group promoting a particular cause or point of view?
• Is this person or organization trying to raise money?
• Does this person or organization want my personal information, or are they asking me to do something on their behalf?
• Is the information provided in the public interest?
• Is any advertising on the page clearly separate from the health information?

Science
Always question scientific results and determine if the facts support the conclusions. Ask yourself if the findings sound too good or too awful to be true. Don't hesitate to get a second opinion or ask additional questions to be sure that you are getting accurate information. Also, remember that just because it is posted on the Internet does not necessarily mean the information is true or credible. 

Finally, be careful about any individual or organization that pushed you toward immediate action without consulting a dentist or other oral health care professional first. The types of questions you should ask include:

• Do the author's credentials reflect expertise in the area?
• Is the argument or conclusion supported by sound scientific evidence or just an unsubstantiated theory? Is it a myth or fact?
• Do objective organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health support these claims or conclusions?
• Are the study results current, and does the research provide the most up-to-date facts available?
• Has the information appeared in a well-known medical, dental or science journal and been reviewed by other dentists or members of the scientific community? If so, the publication should be easily obtainable through a medical/dental library.
• Does any other credible health care organization support the findings?

These tips will help you sort through the maze of Web sites to find credible information about oral health issues.

Resource for Teachers

The Rhode Island Departments of Health & Education has developed a comprehensive listing of oral health educational tools and resources for teachers and parents. The 25-page document features a detailed list of educational programs, notes about the programs, their target audiences and how to obtain them. It also includes a list of useful Web sites. To download a copy, go to www.oralhealthamerica.org and click Resources.

Dental Problems Can Hinder Kids' Learning in School

Dental problems such as decay and trauma can cause schoolchildren severe pain and keep them from learning in the classroom. And sometimes these problems keep them out of the classroom altogether.

U.S. children lose an estimated 51 million school hours each year due to dental-related illness. "Painful, chronic dental problems can hurt a student's ability to thrive," said Dr. Scott Navarro, Dental Director, Delta Dental Plan of New Jersey. "Early tooth loss due to decay can impair speech development, and students may fall behind in schoolwork due to increased absences. When they are in school, students experiencing dental pain may have trouble concentrating and learning."

School nurses report a range of dental problems in children they see, including dental caries, gum disease, poor bite, loose teeth, and oral trauma. Possible signs that a child suffers from dental pain include anxiety, depression and fatigue, which can all cause school performance to suffer. Children from low income families are hardest hit with oral health problems, suffering nearly five times as much dental caries as children from higher-income families, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. If left untreated, the pain and infection from these oral health problems can lead to trouble eating, speaking, and learning.

Students with chronic dental pain aren't always able to verbalize it. Teachers may notice that a student is anxious, depressed or fatigued, but not automatically recognize these behaviors as manifestations of physical pain. When children's dental problems are treated and they are no longer in pain, both their learning and school attendance records improve, according to the American Journal of Public Health.

If a teacher suspects that a student is suffering from a neglected oral health problem, the teacher should refer the student to the school nurse for follow-up.

Are Cavity Rates Rising?

After decades of steadily declining cavity rates in the U.S., many dentists are alarmed by recent reports suggesting that the trend might be reversing. Following a report in The Wall Street Journal that cited anecdotal evidence for "an alarming  rise in cavities among children and teens," researchers in the state of Washington released an analysis of 150,000 dental insurance claims for children younger than seven to see if the anecdotes were true. The Washington report found that more children needed fillings in 2001 than did in 1998, but that children who required fillings needed fewer than they have in the past.

"This seems to suggest that, while more kids are getting at least one cavity, they're not as prone to severe decay in several teeth," explained Max Anderson, DDS, an oral health adviser for Delta Dental Plans Association and contributor to the Washington analysis.

While the Washington observations might signal a trend, it's impossible to conclude that there has been a general reversal of the long-running decline in cavity rates. In fact, an article in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Dental Association noted that since 1970 tooth decay rates for people ages 18 to 45 dropped by 27 percent. Decay rates for people ages 46 to 65 remained the same, indicating that, if the battle against cavities isn't yet won, it also isn't taking a turn for the worse.

Community water fluoridation and advances in dental care have been credited with driving cavity rates down for a number of years. An increase in the availability of employer-sponsored dental benefits has also been a major factor. People with dental insurance visit the dentist almost twice as often as people without coverage, which is significant when you consider that only six percent of Americans had private dental insurance in1970, while nearly half are covered by employer-sponsored dental insurance today. "Despite these advances, cavities have not been eradicated and won't be in the near future," Dr. Anderson said. "It's as important as ever to brush and floss, choose nutritious food and drinks, get enough fluoride and go to dentists for checkups."