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8
Closing Remarks
Isham asked members of the Roundtable to reflect on the day’s pro-
ceedings and the themes that emerged from the ensuing discussions.
Isham noted that one theme that he heard reiterated throughout the day
related to fragmentation and a lack of coordination between oral/dental
health and medicine. He learned from the proceedings of the significant
impact of public health interventions on oral/dental health outcomes,
for example, water fluoridation. He observed that there are tremendous
opportunities for prevention to significantly reduce the morbidity associ-
ated with oral/dental disease. He stated that oral/dental diseases touch
all Americans and there is clear evidence to guide both public policy and
individual behaviors.
Isham noted that the evidence from health literacy as it applies to
medical practice is also directly applicable to oral/dental health practice.
Isham said how impressed he was with the map of U.S. populations that
lack water fluoridation. There is solid evidence that fluoridated water
dramatically reduces caries in children, and yet, there is resistance to this
public health intervention in many parts of the country. Isham stated that
a determined effort is needed on the part of the oral health and medical
communities to overcome resistance to evidence-based interventions.
Roundtable member Kelly commented that human-centered design
is essential to motivate behavior change. A community-focused frame-
work is important, but behavior change needs to occur at the level of the
individual.
Roundtable member Ross was encouraged by discussions relating to
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102 ORAL HEALTH LITERACY
social determinants of health and the need to intervene early with moth-
ers, to ensure that infants receive the preventive oral/dental care that
they need.
Roundtable member Pleasant observed that many of the lessons from
health literacy are applicable to oral health literacy. While it is important
to avoid “reinventing the wheel,” he cautioned that oral health profes-
sionals should be very careful not to adopt tools and methodologies that
have not been proven in the context of dental practice. In terms of research
and evaluation, Pleasant indicated that health outcome indicators are
needed in the evaluation metric, as well as information on the costs of
interventions under investigation.
Roundtable member Brach observed that primary care providers are
essential players in terms of oral health literacy because, according to
some of the evidence provided during the workshop, they are respon-
sible for 50 percent of the claims for dental services among some pedi-
atric populations. She felt strongly that primary care providers, given
their prominent role in addressing the needs of vulnerable populations,
need to be targeted for education and training in the area of oral health
literacy. Brach congratulated those in the oral health literacy community
for adopting some of health literacy’s best practices, evidence, and knowl-
edge and applying it to oral health.
Roundtable member Parker raised a very practical issue. She asked
how many people in the audience brushed their teeth for 2 minutes. This
is recommended, but she herself admitted that it is a difficult recommen-
dation to adhere to. She has four children and none of them was ever
taught to brush for 2 minutes. She suggested that it is important to hold
up a mirror, ask about our own health literacy, and acknowledge the dif-
ficulties of practicing what is preached.
Roundtable member Schyve found that a key message from the day’s
proceedings was that poor oral health literacy leads to both poor general
health and poor oral health. He observed that the implications of poor
oral health literacy extend beyond oral health. A second key message is
that oral health literacy is influenced at multiple levels, the community,
the family, and the individual. To address the issue of oral health literacy,
interventions are needed at the level of policy makers, public health orga-
nizations, and individuals, Schyve said. He observed that solid research
with a focus on outcomes is needed to provide evidence that prevention
(e.g., fluoride, sealants) and medical/dental collaboration are effective.
He stated that the adoption of interventions depends on complex systems
and that an intervention’s success may be dependent on the context in
which it is tested. This introduces a major challenge to research because
it is necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness of interventions, not just
overall, but in specific situations. Schyve said that much more research
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CLOSING REMARKS 103
is needed to understand how oral health literacy will be translated into
actual behavior change.
Roundtable member Loveland reiterated the finding from the work-
shop that oral health literacy is dependent on health literacy. She added
that oral health is a major determinant of general health and that the
status of oral health in America is poor and in urgent need of attention.
She was encouraged that there are initiatives under way to address this
problem. As a physician, Loveland acknowledged that neither she, nor
her medical colleagues, focused on oral health or oral health literacy but
that medical/dental collaborations are very important. Medical school
training is necessary, she said, but added that a lengthy period of time will
pass before well-trained clinicians get into clinical practice. She expressed
some skepticism about top-down approaches to changing provider behav-
ior. Loveland said that professional societies, reaching out to one another,
are likely needed to bring about collaboration.
Roundtable member Francis said she was left after the day’s proceed-
ings with a desire to find evidence behind oral health literacy interven-
tions and that evidence on community-based and individual interven-
tions is lacking. An understanding of the disease process is not sufficient
when it comes to changing health behaviors. She observed that access to
oral health care in the United States is twice as bad as access to physical
health care with 100 million people lacking access to oral health care. Oral
health literacy is critical to improving this statistic, she said. Francis found
Jacob’s presentation and opinion that framing an issue in terms of a prob-
lem, in this case water fluoridation, helps the public to accept potential
solutions to the problem. She also found Wong’s comment about positive
deviance instructive and felt that evaluating successes might be very
informative. Lastly, Francis emphasized the importance of focusing on
patient-centered care, self-efficacy, and the social determinants of health
when intervening to improve oral health literacy.
Roundtable member McGarry applauded the attention paid to public
health throughout the day’s deliberations, but expressed some concern
that the subspecialties within dentistry were not discussed. He observed
that financial incentives that reward cosmetic approaches to dentistry
may impede known public health prophylactic approaches. A preoccu-
pation with cosmetic procedures, for example orthodontics, may take up
much of dental practitioners’ time, leaving less time to address the needs
of underserved populations.
Roundtable member Ratzan, as a public health physician with an
interest in communication, was surprised that the issue of tobacco use
was not discussed during the workshop. In the context of oral health liter-
acy, he stated that tobacco use is a very important topic. Ratzan described
a score card developed by the World Health Professions Alliance that was
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104 ORAL HEALTH LITERACY
announced at the United Nations in 2011. The World Health Professions
Alliance includes the World Federation of Dentists, the World Medical
Association, and the International Council of Nurses. It also includes
the international organizations representing pharmacists and physical
therapists. The oral/dental focus of the score card is on tobacco use, not
on tooth brushing. The score card also addresses having a healthy diet
and states that an unhealthy diet increases the risk of being overweight,
obese, and developing oral diseases. Ratzan said that a multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary, plura-disciplinary approach applies not only to profes-
sions, but also to how public health challenges are examined. He agreed
with Brach, that there is a need to better define oral health literacy. He
indicated that it is not yet clear whether oral health literacy is a subset of
health literacy, and if so, how large a subset it represents. Ratzan observed
a great deal of interest in public health by the dentistry professionals and
concluded his observations with a plea, to think holistically and broadly
about the impact of oral/dental interventions using existing indicators
that are in place to monitor public health.
Roundtable member Alvarado-Little expressed her appreciation of
the focus on the community perspective. She greatly benefited from the
presentation from Congressman Cummings and his reference to the few
items in his family’s medicine cabinet to treat dental problems. Alvarado-
Little works with the Latino community in Amsterdam, New York, and
has found that families can preserve their limited resources and adapt
dental practices to what might be available in the home. Alvarado-Little
said she also benefited from the presentation by Wolpin who described
the practices of mothers in a Hispanic migrant community where young
mothers were using honey on pacifiers to help quiet babies at nighttime.
These stories are very instructive and could be invaluable if shared with
pediatricians working in similar communities. Pediatricians have access
to families and are viewed as authority figures within the migrant com-
munity. The family may not have contact with a dentist, but, Alvarado-
Little said oral health messages could be shared by the pediatrician.
Having a cultural component to interventions is very important, she said,
because some of the beliefs and the customs within the communities are
not so tied to socioeconomic status. Rather, behaviors are rooted in what
is learned and observed in the traditions of families.
Roundtable member Rush highlighted the value of workshop deliber-
ations on the relationship between oral health and general health, particu-
larly chronic disease, and the discussions relating to disparities in access
to oral/dental care. Rush was especially interested in the interventions
that targeted the parents and caregivers of children. He felt that it would
be useful to examine the relationship between oral health and the health
care of older adults, particularly the people who are providing support
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CLOSING REMARKS 105
for older adults, whether they are paid or nonpaid caregivers. He stated
that the pain that older adults suffer is also shared by their caregivers.
Roundtable member Humphreys found the discussion of positive
deviance quite interesting and asked whether there are any data on this
topic at the community level. She indicated that examining variance
across communities with similar characteristics, for example, socioeco-
nomic and minority status, to identify positive outliers in terms of oral/
dental health problems could be instructive. Those communities with a
relatively good oral/dental health profile could be studied to identify the
behavioral antecedents of these health outcomes. Humphreys added that
representatives from communities with these positive attributes could
form alliances with members of other communities that had more nega-
tive attributes. For example, she mentioned that if water fluoridation was
one of the attributes of the positively deviant community, then members
of that community could be effective communicators regarding its value.
Roundtable member Fritz remarked that she was surprised the pub-
lic is not aware that dental disease is preventable. She pointed out that
knowing dental disease is preventable is insufficient. It is also necessary
to find a way to change behaviors and how to change behaviors needs to
be addressed in both health literacy and oral health literacy. Fritz noted
parallels between health literacy and oral health literacy, but said that
more work is needed to find out if the solutions to problems are the same.
Wong discussed the need to distinguish oral health and dental health
and interventions aimed at individuals (e.g., pulling teeth) and those
aimed at communities (e.g., water fluoridation). He said that the compe-
tencies and skills needed at the individual or community level are distinct
and need to be identified. Wong also highlighted the need to collaborate
across allopathic medicine and dental/oral health.
An audience member, from the University of Maryland School of
Dentistry suggested that a collaboration with school teachers might be an
effective approach to improving the oral health literacy of children. She
pointed out that teachers are key communicators.
Commander Pamella Vodicka, of the U.S. Public Health Service, a reg-
istered dietitian and oral health program lead within the Maternal Child
Health Bureau (MCHB) at HRSA stated that individuals may be reluctant
to divulge their behaviors or that of their children if they think that they
are being judged. In her experience, it is vital to have some cultural con-
text and to learn about an individual’s circumstances. When working as
a dietitian, one of her clients (a young mother) thought that if she did not
tell her the “right thing,” her baby would be taken away from her. As part
of her work at HRSA, Vodicka described an MCHB-funded cooperative
agreement that supports two oral health literacy initiatives:
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106 ORAL HEALTH LITERACY
1. The Medicaid-CHIP State Dental Association has funding to col-
laborate with partners to develop, implement, and evaluate an
improved approach to strengthen Medicaid and CHIP oral health
program infrastructures and capacity. The aim of this initiative is to
assure quality and cost appropriate services for women, children,
and families served by state oral health and Title V programs.
2. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has been
funded to develop an online model curriculum collection on oral
health hosted on MedEdPORTAL©, AAMC’s free, peer-reviewed,
open-access, online repository of educational resources and teach-
ing materials.
Commander Vodicka discussed another HRSA project that is being
co-led by the Bureau of Health Professions and the Office of Strategic
Priorities. A standard core set of clinical oral health competencies is being
developed for non-dental primary care providers working in HRSA’s
safety net settings. These competencies will pertain to the practice of
physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and nurse midwives.
Isham closed the session by thanking the speakers, the workshop
planning committee, and IOM staff for an outstanding workshop.
