VIDEO: Oral health ‘should be part of primary health care’

Over the past 2 decades, the cost of dental care has increased about 30% per person in the United States, according to a recent perspective in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In 2018 alone, Americans spent approximately $55 billion in out-of-pocket dental costs, representing more than 25% of all out-of-pocket health care spending, Rena N. D’Souza, DDS, MS, PhD, director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, former director of the NIH, and Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, the U.S. Surgeon General, wrote.

The NEJM perspective draws on findings from a report compiled by the NIDCR that identified substantial disparities in access to oral health care across the country.

In this video, D’Souza discusses the report and how primary care physicians can help address oral health disparities.

“If we thought of health in general as being not a privilege but a right for all our citizens, then oral health naturally should be part of primary health care,” D’Souza told Healio. “The oral cavity is connected to the rest of the body, as we all know. Diseases that are manifested in the mouth oftentimes have systemic implications, and vice versa ... Thinking about a patient in a holistic sense is absolutely critical for the future.”

References:

D’Souza RN, et al. N Engl J Med. 2022;doi:10.1056/NEJMp2118478.

Oral health in America. https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/oralhealthinamerica. Accessed April 1, 2022.