Watch Your Mouth Massachusetts: The Watch Your Mouth Coalition Is Working In Massachusetts, New Hampshire And Maine To Make Children's Oral Health A Priority. Objectives of the Watch Your Mouth Coalition are to Educate the public that tooth decay is the most common childhood disease that can cause diminished school performance and poor overall health. WYM advocates for wider access to preventive services, such as dental sealants and fluoride, and regular dental exams for all children.
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Check out the Watch Your Mouth television advertisement, airing around the state right now! Preview the ad at full size. (Download QuickTime player.)

Watch Your Mouth Partners in Massachusetts: New This Month

Children can't be healthy without good oral health!

Our state is known for its history of firsts: we had the nation's first public school system, the first constitution and the first public health department. However, when it comes to the simple issue of children's oral health, the Commonwealth has fallen far behind. We can do something about this. When communities work together to make children's oral health a statewide priority, kids gain access to much needed services and prevention.

Learn more about us. Get involved on a local or statewide level and speak up for children's oral health!

Watch Your Mouth: Massachusetts: Partner Spotlight

May Partner Spotlight: Boston Public Health Commission HIV/Dental Program

Created in 1990, the HIV Dental Ombudsperson Program (HIV DOP), within the Boston Public Health Commission, is a comprehensive oral health access program for persons living with HIV in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire. The HIV DOP is funded by the City of Boston with Ryan White Part A funds from HRSA and by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Major program activities are to facilitate access to oral health care and to educate consumers and providers. Our goal is to reduce or remove barriers to accessing oral health care. Most of our clients are without a third party payer or have limited coverage for services that restore function and maintain oral health.

HIV DOP promotes sound oral health and access to care in community-based, non-discriminatory settings, including public and private dental practices and dental institutions. Clients enrolled in the program have access to routine and emergency dental care. Clients are encouraged to establish a medical as well as dental relationship with their dentists. We offer training to our providers, the next is an infection control update. Providers are encouraged to use www.hivdent.org also as a way to stay informed on issues and to be able to access experts in oral medicine and other disciplines. Oral health is an important contributor to overall health for HIV+ individuals. The HIV DOP works with over 400 AIDS Service Organizations, medical and dental providers and other relevant agencies in the area. Over the past 17 years HIV DOP has provided over 35,000 services to approximately 4,500 clients. To enroll as a provider or for more information please contact us at 617-534- 2344 or email to aids@bphc.org.

Learn more about the HIV/Dental program

Join the Watch Your Mouth Team!

Watch Your Mouth is a dynamic, statewide public awareness campaign with more than 1500 supporters including: consumers, advocates, health care professionals, academics, and insurers. In collaboration with the Frameworks Institute, the campaign generates a variety of widely distributed campaign documents.

We are looking to fill the Oral Health Communications Coordinator position, with the primary responsibility for visioning and managing the daily operations of this multi-faceted, statewide oral health public awareness campaign. Health Care For All (HCFA) serves as the primary staffing resource for the Massachusetts Watch Your Mouth Campaign.

To learn more about this opportunity or to apply, please visit our website.

Listen Up!

Last April, Massachusetts demonstrated bold leadership when it enacted landmark legislation to transform the state's healthcare system. As the state and its partners continue to refine the law and its provisions, it is critical that our leadership recognize one important-and often overlooked-aspect of overall health: oral health.

Learn how you can watch your back by watching your mouth with the new WYM Public Service Campaign:

Watch Your Mouth: Massachusetts: Bring the Future to the Front Lines of Care

Proven Solutions for Growing a Healthy Massachusetts

Massachusetts leads the nation in innovative approaches to health care. We have some of the best hospitals and research facilities in the world, and recently we boldly transformed our health care system to help provide health coverage to all of our residents. We need to apply this same innovative thinking to an essential part of the health care system that is often left out of the conversation: oral health. Oral health is a critical component of overall health. Dental decay is the single most common, chronic disease of childhood- more common than asthma or obesity.

A recent report found that 40% of Massachusetts' children have a history of decay by the time they have reached third grade. This is a number equivalent to 10 children in every third grade classroom in the state. Left untreated, dental disease can impact a child's most basic activities such as eating, sleeping and paying attention in school. And in adulthood, dental disease is associated with chronic health conditions such as heart diseases and diabetes. Fortunately, we know how to prevent this disease and we have community-based solutions right here in the Commonwealth that are proven to work.

Today's system of oral health care does not reach all children in our state, resulting in lost opportunities to prevent missed school time, pain, and loss of sleep. Currently, our state's system of oral health care is a patchwork of services, where entire communities are unable to access highly effective preventive services because they simply do not have the systems in place to provide them. The solution to this problem is right under our noses - our existing community resources such as schools and physicians' offices provide an opportunity to reach children where the are and increase access to care in communities that need it.

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Watch Your Mouth Massachusetts is supported by grants from the Oral Health Foundation and Dental Services of Massachusetts.
Watch Your Mouth Coalition.