In Florida's Manatee County, the lack of dental care was creating a crisis for children, and the chief witnesses were school nurses. In response, the county's health and education leaders have started working together to get kids into the dental chair.
The Deamonte Driver Dental Project was real. It was here. Yet the job of bringing adequate dental care to the poor children of Prince George's County would not be a simple one. State and national public-health officials have been grappling with the same challenges: to educate both poor people and dentists; to address the historic breach between oral health care and the rest of health care; to confront the vast gaps in the dental public-health system.
