Late last month as snow enveloped Olympia, Washington, state advocates braved the elements for hearings on two very important yet different issues - improving access to dental care and reproductive rights and contraception coverage. At one point a veteran

This week, PBS’ NewsHour highlighted that millions of Americans go without dental care and also profiled how alternative dental providers, known as dental therapists, have improved access to care in Alaska and have the potential to do the same in the lowe

Oral health advocates are trained to reinforce that oral health is essential to overall health. The good news is that a poll released today by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (conducted by Lake Research) found that 79 percent of survey respondents say that

In one of the most memorable scenes in Cast Away, Tom Hanks, who is stranded on a deserted island and has a toothache, gruesomely removes his tooth with a figure skate because he can no longer live with the pain. Even though they are not stranded on a des

In late August, I found myself in a small conference room in a sub-regional clinic (SRC) in St. Mary’s, Alaska, a village of 549 Yup’ik residents, listening to Bernadette Charles describe how she is working to meet the village’s oral health needs. Not onl

Last week, the New York Times reported on the dire need to improve health care on Native American Tribal Lands. Unfortunately, one of the major components of overall health and the health care system was overlooked as part of the article – oral health and