I am working to eliminate disparities in oral health care. Here’s how you can help.

We must take significant steps towards ensuring equal access to dental treatment.

According to the National Institutes of Health, dental care is the most delayed medical care or treatment in the United States. This raises important questions about the underlying reasons for this phenomenon.

Of course, an important factor contributing to this trend is dental anxiety, which is a problem for a significant portion of the population. Many people expect dental procedures to be inherently painful or otherwise unpleasant experiences, and this discourages people from seeking care, even when they are experiencing pain or other serious problems. This can lead to unnecessary suffering and complications.

No one likes going to the dentist, but the consequences of procrastination can be much worse.

But that’s not the only reason people put off visiting the dentist – affordability is also a big hurdle. This is a problem I have experienced myself. When I was told I needed a kidney transplant, a thorough workup of my various body systems was required to ensure I was a suitable candidate. Because I qualified for Medicaid and Medicare, I was able to get those exams. The only exception to my coverage was a dental exam. Although doctors understood that oral health is related to overall health, my insurance did not. Generous donations from friends, family and strangers allowed me to take the exam. When the dentist found problems with some teeth, he told me that they wouldn’t prevent me from getting the transplant, but it could present serious problems later if they weren’t fixed. But I still couldn’t afford it because it wasn’t covered by my insurance

Delaying dental care is bad for personal and public health, increasing the chances of serious health problems. And making it worse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there are significant disparities in receiving dental treatment along racial and ethnic lines from ages 2 to 65 or older. What are the reasons for these disparities and the delay in oral health care in general? Some of them we know, and some of them we don’t. But in Utah, we’re trying to find out.

Understanding the full spectrum of factors driving these disparities and delays in oral health care is imperative. By doing so, we can better address these problems at their source and take significant steps toward ensuring equal access to dental treatment for all, regardless of age, race, or ethnicity.

Through the Utah Health Policy Project, and made possible by a grant from CareQuest, I am helping to create a patient- and consumer-based oral health coalition. This will be a group of regular people, not health care professionals or experienced health care advocates.

To begin with, our goal is to hear the experiences and stories of regular Utahns who have experienced barriers to accessing dental care and find out what those barriers are. After that, the coalition will meet with other dental and public health stakeholders to seek solutions to these problems.

If you have any questions or any experiences you would like to share, or are potentially interested in serving on the coalition, please contact me by emailing oralhealthcoalitionutah@gmail.com. Your feedback and experiences can be a key to helping us unlock solutions to the problems Utahns face with accessing oral health care.

Paul Gibbs is an independent filmmaker, kidney transplant recipient, and health care activist who has lived in Utah since his early childhood. Paul has worked on health care issues with organizations such as the Utah Health Policy Project, Voices For Utah Children, Families USA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He lives in West Valley City with his wife and two sons.