Chicago community health workers gathered to address the lack of oral health care facing their clientele. The Sharing Smiles Roundtable discussed the lack of preventative care and financing for oral health with organizations including Advocate Health Care, Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago and Community Health.
 
The average child at Erie Family Dental Centers has five to six cavities on their visits, according to Dr. Lee Francis, president and CEO of Erie Family Health Center, which hosted the seminar and has several locations in Chicago. And those who live in poverty, both children and adults, suffer more than twice the amount of tooth decay.Francis called oral health "one of the biggest challenges in public health that exists today." While oral health care reform may not be at the forefront of the health care debate, problems of access and affordability plague many people with little or no dental insurance. Children are 2.6 times more likely to lack dental insurance than health insurance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.