Children’s Dental Health
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Key Findings

• Dental disease is rampant among California children
• Many children in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have cavities
• Many -- but not all -- local low-income children have dental insurance
• Dental insurance is not enough. Prevention and access matter, too
• Populations who need quality dental care have seen little progress
• State legislators increasingly are placing dental health on their agenda
• Mandating dental assessments is a starting point, not an ending point

State Legislators Increasingly Are Placing Dental Health on Their Agenda

In response to growing concern statewide about children's dental heath, California passed landmark legislation in 2006 requiring dental check-ups, somewhat like vaccinations, when children enter school. Parents of children entering public school for the first time, in kindergarten or first grade, must now certify that their children received a dental assessment -- a simple screening or a full exam -- by a licensed dental professional by May 31 of their first school year, or within a year before starting school. Parents can receive an exemption, based on cost, lack of access, and/or lack of consent.

Schools also must tell parents about the requirement, provide information on the importance of oral health to overall health and school readiness, and offer parents enrollment information for publicly funded health insurance programs.

The law does not provide extra funding to provide the assessments for children who cannot pay, nor does it offer any additional guarantee of access to care or follow-up treatment. Moreover, it lacks a real enforcement mechanism. It could, however, significantly increase awareness among parents of the need for early dental care, increase the number of young children receiving dental care, engage schools in the process, and yield valuable data about kindergartners' dental health and access to care.

Pending bills in the state legislature would expand a school-based dental health prevention program (AB 834), develop guidelines for perinatal dental care (AB 13), require collection of ethnicity-based data from dental professionals (AB 269), require regular dental assessments (and other preventive health care) for children in foster care (AB 273), and set standards for dental care (and other health care) in school-based health centers (SB 564).