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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing |
3233.0: Monday, November 06, 2006: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM | |||
Oral | |||
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| The Alaska Native population’s unmet oral health needs are 2-5 times greater than the US average. Dentists are not available in remote geographical areas and children and their families have unnecessary dental pain, infection and suffering. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC), developed a comprehensive dental program which includes both prevention and treatment utilizing Alaska Natives, some of whom received training as Dental Health-Aide Therapists (DHAT) in New Zealand. Of the many procedures and services these individuals are educated and trained to provide in their communities, some have been called irreversible (fillings and simple extractions), by organized dentistry. The American Dental Association and the Alaska Dental Society have actively opposed DHATs providing irreversible procedures with full-page ads in the Alaska newspapers, lobbying in Alaska and the US Congress, and a law suit even though the Alaska Attorney General has deemed it is legal for DHATs to do these procedures. This panel will discuss these issues from the perspective of ANTHC, ADHA, ADA and the access, human rights and public health perspective. | |||
| Learning Objectives: 1. To describe the unmet oral health needs of the Alaska Native population and the essential components of the Alaska Dental Therapist Program 2. To describe the oral health access problem and the role the of the Advanced Dental Hygiene Practitioner in response to these needs 3. To identify the perspective of organized dentistry on the access problem and how to respond to these needs 4. To provide the public health and human rights perspective for a high-risk community which is responding to their unmet oral health needs | |||
| Myron Allukian, DDS, MPH | |||
| Alaska Dental Therapist Program Ron Nagel, DDS, MPH | |||
| An Alaska Dental Therapist's Perspective Aurora Johnson, DHAT | |||
| American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA) Perspective Ann Battrell, RDH, MSDH(c) | |||
| American Dental Association (ADA) Perspective Kathleen Roth, DDS | |||
| Public Health Perspective Myra Munson, JD, MSW | |||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information. | |||
| Organized by: | Oral Health | ||
| CE Credits: | CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing | ||
The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA