The Current Issue:
While not often thought of as a health crisis, severe medical complications resulting from minimal oral care and treatment can be extremely dangerous, or even fatal. Tooth decay is the single most common chronic childhood disease, outranking even asthma and hay fever. Even the United States Surgeon General has recognized six out of every ten children will suffer from tooth decay by age five, and poor children are twice as likely to suffer from untreated decay. Painful, untreated tooth decay leads to 51 million lost school hours. And poor children suffer almost 12 times more restricted-activity days than those coming from families with higher incomes. Pain and distress caused by untreated dental disease can also lead to problems in eating and speaking.

These statistics hold true, even here in beautiful Collier County. In fact, the Lastinger Center report found that nearly 1/3, or about 17,000, of Collier County children do not have access to even basic dental care. The report also found that nearly 70 percent of children from one Collier County elementary school, with a large population of students from low-income families, were found to have untreated dental decay and periodontal disease. Of the total school population, 18 percent of the children suffered from acute dental disease that required immediate emergency care.

NCEF’s Contribution to the Solution:
The UF dental program at Edison College in Naples will provide specialized dental services to underprivileged and at risk children, with the capability of accepting 15,000 patient visits each year once the program reaches full capacity. The first floor will house the Naples Pediatric Dental Clinic at Edison College and the second floor will be used for classroom and high-tech laboratory space for The UF College of Dentistry providing much-needed room for the college to expand.

The Ronald McDonald Care Mobile which provides medical and dental screening and health education to underprivileged children will be housed in the new building and its staff will refer patients to the clinic. Collier Health Services, Inc., a private, non-profit health care provider that chiefly serves clients at or below poverty level, will operate the clinic’s billing and collection activities, payroll, and supply procurement, while also referring clients to the clinic.

With a strategy of community partnerships focused on vulnerable, indigent and special needs populations, the UF College of Dentistry’s Statewide Network for Community Oral Health has become one of the largest providers of low-cost dental care in Florida. It operates 18 other clinics throughout the state and provides nearly of all care to Florida’s indigent residents through its network.

The Current Issue:
Early childhood education refers to the learning experiences, structured and otherwise, a child receives from birth through age five. Cognitive development, which includes obtaining pre-reading, language, vocabulary and number skills, begins at birth. It has been found that there is an extremely powerful connection between the development a child experiences in his first five years and the success that he will experience later in life. More specifically, the United States government has discovered that a child’s knowledge of the alphabet in kindergarten is one of the most significant predictors of what that child’s tenth grade reading ability will be.