Health News
- Smiling Schools Tooth-varnish Program Expands To 10 More Counties; Now In 40
Kentucky's Smiling Schools program is expanding to 10 more counties and will now provide its free preventive tooth varnishing treatments to children in 40 elementary schools, most in Appalachia, according to a state press release. Gov. Steve Beshear...
- State Gives 5 Health Departments Money For Mobile Dental-hygiene Teams That Will Examine Children At Schools; 5 More Next Year
Using new money in the state budget, the state Department for Public Health has given five local health departments grants to launch mobile dental hygiene programs. The one-year awards of $160,000 will pay for a full-time dental hygienist and assistant;...
- Sick Of All The Bad Facts About Kentucky's Health? Here's Encouraging News About Oral Health And Drug Treatment
Despite the plethora of bad news about Kentucky's poor health status, there are many positive initiatives for Kentucky's oral health and substance abuse treatment, which were stories buried under health news headlines about Medicaid expansion...
- Bullitt County Health Board Will Appeal Judge's Ruling Against Smoking Ban, With Financial Help From Clark County
The Bullitt County Board of Health will appeal a local judge's ruling that it lacks the authority to impose a smoking ban, and it will get some help from the board in Clark County, one of four where bans have been enacted by health boards instead...
- Promising Tooth Varnish That Prevents Tooth Decay Will Be Applied To 25,000 Students In 16 Kentucky Appalachian Counties
Using an innovative fluoride technique, about 25,000 children in 16 Appalachian Kentucky counties will receive preventive dental care at school, under a $1.25 million pilot project announced by Gov. Steve Beshear yesterday. The counties are Bell, Breathitt,...
Health News
Effort for kids' dental health in Clark, started by volunteers and continued by health department with tax, earns national award
"A community effort to fight tooth decay in children in Clark County has been named a model for the nation," veteran journalist Al Smith reports in an op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader. The Clark County Dental Health Initiative received the award for model practice last month at the annual conference of the National Association of City and County Health Officials, and the county health board recently raised taxes to pay for it.
Smith notes that the effort was boosted by "a local banker who raised money with help from the Clark County Community Foundation and First Lady Jane Beshear, who urged Gov. Steve Beshear to use the Clark initiative as an example in organizing treatment for underserved children in Eastern Kentucky." The Beshears' permanent home is in Clark County.
Volunteerism only lasts so long, but the Clark County Health Department is now funding the program with a tax increase that will let it hire the state's first public-health dental hygienist. "With continued help from the local dentists and citizen volunteers, [it hopes to] eventually extend the program to students through high school," Smith reports.
The Clark County Board of Health voted this month to raise its tax rate to 4.6 cents per $100 of assessed property value from last year's 4 cents, to generate about $150,000 in additional revenue for the program. Public Health Director Scott Lockard "estimated that funding the program would take $127,531 per year, but the board wanted a cushion in the budget to help pay for dental care for students not covered by Medicaid, KCHIP or private insurance," Rachel Gilliam reports for The Winchester Sun. Lockard told the board, ?I can think of nothing better to invest in other than our children.?
"Its five-year campaign for change by volunteer dentists, hygienists and engaged citizens should inspire all Kentuckians in a state further scandalized by its own Diane Sawyer in her '20/20' program on ABC in 2009 when she showed 11 million viewers shocking scenes of Appalachian kids with disfigured teeth called Mountain Dew Mouth," writes Smith, former federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission and co-founder of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes Kentucky Health News.
The Clark County program was inspired by Winchester dentist Rankin Skinner, after he and his wife, Ruthi, had started a preventive program for poor children in Ecuador, Smith writes: "He developed a similar plan for Clark County, became its unpaid director and persuaded all 16 other Winchester dentists and 116 volunteers to apply dental fluoride varnish to children in preschool through fifth grade. Every Winchester dentist donated service and staff to take the initiative inside the schools.
Five years later the decay rate in sixth graders has dropped to 11 percent, a decline of 78 percent since 2008 when Kentucky's decay rate for children was reported in national media to be a shameful 50 percent, the country's worst."Smith notes that the effort was boosted by "a local banker who raised money with help from the Clark County Community Foundation and First Lady Jane Beshear, who urged Gov. Steve Beshear to use the Clark initiative as an example in organizing treatment for underserved children in Eastern Kentucky." The Beshears' permanent home is in Clark County.
Volunteerism only lasts so long, but the Clark County Health Department is now funding the program with a tax increase that will let it hire the state's first public-health dental hygienist. "With continued help from the local dentists and citizen volunteers, [it hopes to] eventually extend the program to students through high school," Smith reports.
The Clark County Board of Health voted this month to raise its tax rate to 4.6 cents per $100 of assessed property value from last year's 4 cents, to generate about $150,000 in additional revenue for the program. Public Health Director Scott Lockard "estimated that funding the program would take $127,531 per year, but the board wanted a cushion in the budget to help pay for dental care for students not covered by Medicaid, KCHIP or private insurance," Rachel Gilliam reports for The Winchester Sun. Lockard told the board, ?I can think of nothing better to invest in other than our children.?
- Smiling Schools Tooth-varnish Program Expands To 10 More Counties; Now In 40
Kentucky's Smiling Schools program is expanding to 10 more counties and will now provide its free preventive tooth varnishing treatments to children in 40 elementary schools, most in Appalachia, according to a state press release. Gov. Steve Beshear...
- State Gives 5 Health Departments Money For Mobile Dental-hygiene Teams That Will Examine Children At Schools; 5 More Next Year
Using new money in the state budget, the state Department for Public Health has given five local health departments grants to launch mobile dental hygiene programs. The one-year awards of $160,000 will pay for a full-time dental hygienist and assistant;...
- Sick Of All The Bad Facts About Kentucky's Health? Here's Encouraging News About Oral Health And Drug Treatment
Despite the plethora of bad news about Kentucky's poor health status, there are many positive initiatives for Kentucky's oral health and substance abuse treatment, which were stories buried under health news headlines about Medicaid expansion...
- Bullitt County Health Board Will Appeal Judge's Ruling Against Smoking Ban, With Financial Help From Clark County
The Bullitt County Board of Health will appeal a local judge's ruling that it lacks the authority to impose a smoking ban, and it will get some help from the board in Clark County, one of four where bans have been enacted by health boards instead...
- Promising Tooth Varnish That Prevents Tooth Decay Will Be Applied To 25,000 Students In 16 Kentucky Appalachian Counties
Using an innovative fluoride technique, about 25,000 children in 16 Appalachian Kentucky counties will receive preventive dental care at school, under a $1.25 million pilot project announced by Gov. Steve Beshear yesterday. The counties are Bell, Breathitt,...