Low dental awareness persists in the CNMI

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

Dental awareness in the CNMI remains low and, despite offers of free dental exams, people have not been taking advantage of this chance to have their teeth fixed, according to Lori Demaine of the Seventh Day Adventist Dental Clinic.

“In the last five years we handed over a thousand of free dental exams to children and their families but, unfortunately, the response is not very favorable,” said Demaine, a registered dental hygienist.

She said that a thousand exams have been conducted among children but only a couple of hundreds came in for the free thorough check-up. She said they already have handed out coupons for free dental check-ups but few parents show up with their children.

This is the reason why the Seventh Day Adventist Clinic has been engaged in raising the CNMI’s dental awareness for the last nine years by giving out free toothbrushes, free stickers, free exams and workshops, said Demaine.

February is Dental Health Month and Demaine is taking the chance by going to different schools to educate children on the proper care of their teeth.

Demaine held a one-hour briefing with students at the San Antonio Elementary School Wednesday morning, discussing with them the ways and means on how to take care of their teeth, why their teeth are important, and everything that relates to dental hygiene.

“We do this every other Wednesday throughout the school year,” Demaine said. “I’ve been doing this for the last four years now.”

She said that, based on recent studies, three out of four children in the U.S. have at least one cavity. “These are children from elementary that is 75 percent of the entire U.S. population.

“We feel that these cavities can be prevented by good oral care and bringing the kids to the dentist early,” she said, adding that brushing at least twice a day can prevent cavities. She said that children do not know what plaque is. “Until now some people think plaque is food,” she said. “If you’d ask them why they brush their teeth they think it is for removal of food.”

Dental Health Month began in 1941 and is now observed in the entire United States and its territories, according to Demaine

Dental Health Month celebration includes a series of public service announcements, mounting of billboards to educate the population as much as possible on dental awareness said