Dental Care Where There is No Dentist

In Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America, Mary Otto describes how American dentistry came to the point of producing Hollywood smiles for some while leaving enormous gaps in care for others. In this excerpt, she describes a model of accessible, affordable dental care that is used successfully in other countries and now, in some parts of the United States. Dental health aide therapists, or DHATS, provide much of the same basic care as dentists. Their training and overheads costs are lower, so dental therapists can go where people need them mostin this case, a remote tribal community in Alaska.

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