Quick Facts of Impact, Fall 2016

Lack of oral health literacy, low-income and transportation barriers often stand in the way of children in underserved communities visiting the dentist. Once bad hygiene habits have been established in early childhood, it is significantly more difficult to reverse the damage that’s been done to primary teeth-not to mention the unhealthy precedent it sets for care of adult teeth. For these reasons and more, KinderSmile Foundation is focusing its Oral Health Program (mobile outreach) and Community Oral Health Center (permanent Dental Home) on establishing a stronghold of dental hygiene with the youngest generations.

In other words, KSF is striving to link babies to a Dental Home by age one. While many pediatric health professionals echo this sentiment, we have contrived a pipeline for pregnant & recently postpartum mothers to register their children with our nonprofit Dental Home while the baby is still in infancy.

We are proud to share the first round of data regarding the underserved population we treat at our Dental Home in downtown Bloomfield Center. Since opening late August 2016, KinderSmile has treated 467 pediatric & perinatal patients hailing from 48 different New Jersey towns. The majority of patients are from Bloomfield (23%) but another 18% travel from Newark–our original hope for being located in a central metro hub.