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Underserved Children to Benefit From Annual Give Kids a Smile Events |
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From Ascribe Newsfeed: February is National Children's Dental Health Month and on Feb. 1, more than 51,000 dental professionals will provide free dental services to more than 500,000 children from low-income families, at more than 2,000 sites nationwide. Tooth decay is the most common chronic disease affecting American children, five times more common than asthma according to a report by the U.S. Surgeon General. "The ADA and dentists across the nation are engaged in creating public awareness of this critical need and trying to extend access to dental care to more low-income children. The ADA launched its national Give Kids A Smile program to combat what the U.S. Surgeon General called "a silent epidemic" of dental disease and to encourage parents, health professionals, policymakers and everyone who cares about children to address this important health issue. Because of inattention and other barriers to oral care, more than half (52 percent) of children ages six to eight have tooth decay, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its Healthy People 2010 oral health update. Give Kids A Smile events are offered by groups of dentists in their private practices and by individual dentists in a variety of locations, coast to coast. JADA, a monthly journal, is the ADA's flagship publication and the best-read scientific journal in dentistry. For more information about the ADA, visit the Association's Web site http://www.ada.org/. AScribe Newswire distributes news from nonprofit and public sector organizations.
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