Delivering oral health services to children in the past: the rise and fall of children's dental clinics.
As a contribution to the current discourse on improving the oral health of impoverished children by increasing their access to oral health services, this essay describes and examines an earlier attempt to accomplish a very similar goal: the philanthropically and publicly funded children's dental clinics that were responsible for close to half of all oral health services delivered to US children during the first half of the 20th century. As an explanation of why these clinics were established and why they proliferated, the essay argues they met 4 criteria essential to successful public health programs aimed at children: they had a clearly understood and largely accepted fiscal and social utility; they provided services that parents could easily understand as benefiting their children; they serviced a broad enough segment of the population to earn them significant social and political support; and, by meeting a variety of the professional needs of oral health care providers, they established a relationship of enlightened self interest with a group whose support or, at least, lack of opposition was crucial to their survival.
American Civilization Department, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Rmeckel@Brown.edu
Richard A
RA
Meckel
D002648:Child; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000266:history; D003729:Dental Care; D003740:Dental Clinics / Q000266:history*; D003752:Dental Health Services / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States