Approximately 400 students in the Wilder School District will help Idaho dental professionals draw attention to National Oral Health Care month with free dental screening from 9:30 a.m. to noon Friday, Feb. 27, at Wilder High, Middle and Elementary schools.

Wilder School District was chosen because a high percentage of Wilder students have untreated oral health problems, according to Idaho Dental Hygienists’ Association President Sally Kane.

"The 2005 Idaho State Smile Survey showed that children in this area have higher than average untreated cavities, a problem 30 percent of Idaho third grade children have. However in the Wilder area, 50 percent of the third grade children surveyed needed fillings and 8 percent of them had pain or infection," Kane said. “This event gives us the opportunity, through an extensive dental screening, to find those students with dental health issues and help make their parents and school officials aware of the extent of the problem. By partnering with Regence Caring Foundation for Children, we can then determine if financial assistance is needed to help those students who need care get appointments with dentists who will provide further examination and treatment."

“Once a dental problem has been discovered, we can determine if the students’ family has dental insurance or some means to pay for treatment,” said Kathy Ellis, the Idaho Coordinator for Regence Caring Foundation for Children. “If not, the Regence Caring Foundation may be able to help through our free dental insurance program for low-income, uninsured families. It’s important that oral health issues be discovered as early as possible to avoid magnifying the problem.”

Ten IDHA hygienists, including two who are bilingual, two pre-dental hygiene students from Boise State University and one dentist will conduct the screenings. They will work in three teams, moving from classroom to classroom, examining students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“The free dental screening works in with an overall nutrition program that the Wilder School District is implementing,” said Wilder School Superintendent Dan Arriola. “Wilder recently received a $5,000 grant from the Idaho Department of Education to establish a school-coordinated health program. We certainly appreciate the time being donated by the dental professionals participating in the free dental screening and Regence Caring Foundation for its financial assistance.”

“We want to emphasize that the dental screening event doesn’t take the place of a full exam in a dental office,” Kane said. “But we should be able to detect the obvious problems and perhaps direct the students to treatment before things get worse. In fact, it has also led to tragic consequences. In 2007, two young boys died from complications related to dental disease. One was 12-year-old Deamonte Driver from Maryland and the other, 6-year-old Alexander Callender from Mississippi. The deaths of these young boys bring to attention that tooth decay left untreated will get worse, may lead to pain, infection and, at times, may be deadly."

For more information, call IDHA President Sally Kane at (208) 376-2236, Kathy Ellis from Regence Caring Foundation at (208) 395-7741 or Wilder School Nurse Brandy Harper at (208) 631-6459.