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The Trouble With Teeth: Dental Care and the Problems of Poverty

April 18, 2005

At the start of the 20th century most Americans could expect to be toothless by the time they turned 45. Today, you can keep your teeth ... if you have the money and the means to get dental care. But millions of Americans don't. And many of them are losing their teeth and living with pain from untreated dental problems that may have links to other serious health problems like heart disease, diabetes, stroke and low birth weight babies. Sheila Kingsberry-Burt lost all of her teeth by the time she was 46. She says she never went to the dentist because "the priority is making sure the kids have something to eat ... Your teeth only become a priority when you get a toothache." But if you're poor and you get a toothache, you may have a very hard time finding a dentist who will treat you.

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"For I would have you know, Sancho, that a mouth without molars is like a mill without a stone, and a tooth is more precious than a diamond."
- Cervantes,
Don Quixote

Sheila Kindsberry-Burt has to struggle to get dental care ...more
Photo: Billy Barnes

» Read "The Beginning of Liberation" by Sheila Kingsberry-Burt.

"The first line a child draws on a face is usually the mouth. The mouth is the center of communication and contact... We use the craniofacial complex - the oral, dental, and the other craniofacial tissues that house the organs of taste, vision, hearing, and smell - to experience and interact with the world around us."

- From Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General