Association between low fluoride exposure and children's intelligence: a meta-analysis relevant to community water fluoridation.

Objectives: Previous meta-analyses have mainly focused on studies conducted in endemic fluorosis areas with relatively high fluoride concentrations. These are impoverished rural communities in China, India, and Iran, and the findings cannot be generalised to developed countries. Therefore, we investigated the association between fluoride concentrations relevant to community water fluoridation and children's cognition measured with IQ scores by synthesising effect sizes reported in observational studies.

The Interprofessional Role in Dental Caries Management: Ways Medical Providers Can Support Oral Health (Perspectives from a Physician).

Medical providers are important allies in the prevention of dental caries. Through raising the issue by asking about risks and strengths, offering anticipatory guidance and counseling, encouraging and following up on referrals, and applying preventive fluoride, medical providers can have a direct, positive impact on oral health. Further, improving communication with referrals, bidirectionally, benefits patient care as well as provider satisfaction.

Preventing Oral Disease: Alternative Providers and Places to Address This Commonplace Condition.

Oral health disease in young children has not decreased, despite adequate modalities for treatment and prevention. Because many children may not see a dentist before oral disease has begun, disease progression can be expected, affecting short-term and long-term oral health. However, most children are seen by other health professionals frequently in their youngest years, providing a unique opportunity to help weave a safety net of oral health care until they are established in a dental home.

Oral and Dental Aspects of Child Abuse and Neglect.

In all 50 states, health care providers (including dentists) are mandated to report suspected cases of abuse and neglect to social service or law enforcement agencies. The purpose of this report is to review the oral and dental aspects of physical and sexual abuse and dental neglect in children and the role of pediatric care providers and dental providers in evaluating such conditions. This report addresses the evaluation of bite marks as well as perioral and intraoral injuries, infections, and diseases that may raise suspicion for child abuse or neglect.

Oral and Dental Aspects of Child Abuse and Neglect.

In all 50 states, health care providers (including dentists) are mandated to report suspected cases of abuse and neglect to social service or law enforcement agencies. The purpose of this report is to review the oral and dental aspects of physical and sexual abuse and dental neglect in children and the role of pediatric care providers and dental providers in evaluating such conditions. This report addresses the evaluation of bite marks as well as perioral and intraoral injuries, infections, and diseases that may raise suspicion for child abuse or neglect.

Increased public reimbursement for prophylactic visits with dentists associated with increased receipt of preventive dental services in children.

Objective: To determine whether higher reimbursement for children's preventive dentistry correlates with greater utilization of preventive dental care.

Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of National Survey of Children's Health 2011/2012 was conducted, combined with state Medicaid reimbursement rates for preventive dentistry. Analyses included prevalence, unadjusted odds ratios, and multivariable logistic regression for receipt of preventive dental services.

Maternal differences and birth outcome disparities: Diversity within a high risk prenatal clinic.

Background: We examined the influence of race/ethnicity on appointment attendance, maternal psychiatric and medical diagnoses, and birth outcomes within a diverse, low income, high risk pregnant population to determine whether birth outcome disparities would be lessened in a sample with high biopsychosocial risk across all groups.

Methods: Data were retrospectively obtained on all women scheduled for appointments in the San Francisco Genera Hospital (SFGH) High-Risk Obstetrics (HROB) clinic during a three-month period. General linear model and logistic regression procedures were used to examine the associations of race/ethnicity with maternal characteristics, clinic attendance, and birth outcomes.

Broadening perspectives on pediatric oral health care provision: social determinants of health and behavioral management.

Dental caries is not just the most common chronic childhood disease, with not insignificant burden of disease during childhood, but also lifelong impact. Traditional models that focus on the "mouth in the chair" have been helpful but insufficient to identify structural root causes for its high incidence, thus having a limited ability to prevent the disease. The addition of social and behavioral determinants to strictly biologic models provides the full context of care, enabling providers to better tailor their guidance and improve health outcomes.

An examination of racial/ethnic disparities in children's oral health in the United States.

Objective: To assess the extent factors other than race/ethnicity explain apparent racial/ethnic disparities in children's oral health and oral health care.

Methods: Data were from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, for children 2-17 years (n=82,020). Outcomes included parental reports of child's oral health status, receiving preventive dental care, and delayed dental care/unmet need.

Racial disparity trends in children's dental visits: US National Health Interview Survey, 1964-2010.

Background And Objective: Research that has repeatedly documented marked racial/ethnic disparities in US children's receipt of dental care at single time points or brief periods has lacked a historical policy perspective, which provides insight into how these disparities have evolved over time. Our objective was to examine the im-pact of national health policies on African American and white children's receipt of dental care from 1964 to 2010.

Methods: We analyzed data on race and dental care utilization for children aged 2 to 17 years from the 1964, 1976, 1989, 1999, and 2010 National Health Interview Survey.

Evidence suggests there was not a "resurgence" of kernicterus in the 1990s.

Background: Although some have suggested that kernicterus disappeared in the United States in the 1970s to 1980s and dramatically reappeared in the 1990s, population-based data to support such a resurgence are lacking.

Methods: We used diagnosis codes on data collection forms from the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) to identify kernicterus cases among children born from 1988 to 1997. We examined kernicterus mortality trends in the United States from 1979 to 2006 using death certificate data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Telephone case management for asthma: an acceptable and effective intervention within a diverse pediatric population.

Background: Asthma disproportionately affects low-income and medically underserved children; additional tools are needed in the effort to improve asthma care.

Objectives: We reviewed the implementation of a telephone case management program provided by community health workers (CHWs) as an alternative to home visits, to examine its efficiency, acceptability, and capacity to identify and address challenges with asthma management.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included children (and their caregivers) presenting for scheduled visits to a comprehensive asthma clinic at an urban, public hospital during 2007.

Most pregnant women in California do not receive dental care: findings from a population-based study.

Objectives: We examined the prevalence of dental care during pregnancy and reasons for lack of care.

Methods: Using a population-based survey of 21,732 postpartum women in California during 2002-2007, we calculated prevalence of dental problems, receipt of care, and reasons for non-receipt of care. We used logistic regression to estimate odds of non-receipt of care by maternal characteristics.

Assessing a multilevel model of young children's oral health with national survey data.

Objectives: To empirically test a multilevel conceptual model of children's oral health incorporating 22 domains of children's oral health across four levels: child, family, neighborhood and state.

Data Source: The 2003 National Survey of Children's Health, a module of the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, is a nationally representative telephone survey of caregivers of children.

Study Design: We examined child-, family-, neighborhood-, and state-level factors influencing parent's report of children's oral health using a multilevel logistic regression model, estimated for 26 736 children ages 1-5 years.

Giving policy some teeth: routes to reducing disparities in oral health.

Despite improvements in oral health status and clear links between oral and systemic health, oral health is not accorded the same importance in health care policy as is general health. This review of oral health disparities over the life span documents the results of this inequity. Dental concerns and unmet dental treatment needs, especially among vulnerable populations, are not well addressed in oral health policies.

Influences on children's oral health: a conceptual model.

Objectives: Despite marked improvements over the past century, oral health in America is a significant problem: caries is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Much oral health research examines influences primarily in the oral cavity or focuses on a limited number of individual-level factors. The purpose of this article was to present a more encompassing conceptual model of the influences on children's oral health.