Advocating for the Public
America’s Leading Advocate for Dental Health
The ADA represents 158,000 member dentists who are dedicated to providing their patients excellent care. They belong to the ADA for many reasons. They know that their Association not only protects their profession, but, just as importantly, protects patients and works to expand dental access to the underserved. Below are a few of the ways in which the ADA advocates on behalf of the public.
Promoting preventive public health measures like sealants, community water fluoridation and school-based dental screenings.
Developing and successfully implementing the Community Dental Health Coordinator, an innovative workforce solution to many of the access problems that plague such underserved communities as remote rural and inner cities and Native American lands.
- Reforming Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
- Lobbying for adequate funding for the Indian Health Service
- Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure that dental health remain a top priority
- Fostering collaboration between private practice dentists and Federally Qualified Health Centers where lower-income people can receive good quality dental care
- Encouraging oral health programs for long-term care and special needs populations
- Educating the public and parents on the importance of oral health through:
The ADA last year launched
Action for Dental Health: Dentists Making a Difference, a nationwide, community based movement to deliver care now to people suffering from untreated disease; strengthen and expand the public/private safety net to provide more care to more Americans; and bring dental health education and disease prevention to people in underserved communities.
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