Disability Health Policy Forum-Dental Care

In an effort to sharpen the discussion in Pennsylvania about the dental care crisis for people with disabilities, ACHIEVA hosted a Disability Health Policy Forum in late 2005. The forum, funded by the FISA Foundation, included an expert panel of speakers that engaged dentists, people with disabilities, family members, other health care professionals, legislators, advocates and other leaders in the state in an attempt to shed further light on this issue. The hope is that the forum will connect some of the people most dedicated to this issue in Pennsylvania so that it is a priority in both the disabilities and health care professional communities.

In Pennsylvania, as in other states, access to oral health care for people with developmental disabilities (among other Medicaid-eligible populations) has become a serious and persistent public-health problem.  Although the link between oral health and overall good health is increasingly well understood and documented by the health professions, oral health is often strikingly absent from discussions of public health and health care. 

The awkward fit between the dental profession’s predominant business model and today’s public-health infrastructure is creating a troubling trend toward a double standard of oral health care in America.  If current trends continue, access issues in Pennsylvania for people with developmental disabilities will worsen.  Should that happen, poor oral health will ultimately take an even greater toll on the overall health of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians, with commensurately higher—and often preventable--costs to the Commonwealth’s Medicaid system. 

Click here to see the complete executive summary.

Click here to see the complete Disability Health Policy Forum report.