Focus on Preventive Services: Sealants
Preventive dental services support healthy growth and development by helping children avoid the onset of caries and other oral disease. Catching oral disease early, or preventing it altogether, can go a long way to help your patients avoid more costly and possibly painful restorative treatment later in life. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), tooth decay affects about one out of five children aged 5 - 11 years. Additionally, children from low-income families are twice as likely (25%) to have cavities as compared with children from higher-income households (11%).
Dental sealants are a quick, easy, and painless preventive service that effectively maintains the oral health of a child. Correctly applied, sealants can prevent 80% of cavities in molar teeth, where 9 out of 10 cavities occur. The optimal time to apply sealants is ...