Informing the Policy Agenda: The Community Voices Experience on Dental Health for Children in North Carolina's Rural Communities

Dental decay is one of the nation's most common childhood diseases and the rate of decay for low-income children in North Carolina is nearly double that of children living above the poverty line. A number of factors impede the utilization of dental services by children; these factors can be grouped into three broad categories: patient factors, provider factors (including availability and provider willingness to provide treatment that is often difficult and time consuming) and payor factors. Addressing the dental health crisis for children in low-income families can only be accomplished by tackling multiple contributors to the problem simultaneously. A Community Voices program in North Carolina demonstrated that key policy strategies must be addressed at the state and national levels to ensure that interventions have the greatest possible impact, measured in terms of improved dental health status and high patient satisfaction rates.