I started in health care a a medical assistant, actually, and really just wanted to change the world.

the growth from where we were when it very first started to where we are now, which is really exciting.

we are literally meeting patients where they're at.

Yeah.

So people have that term where they do that.

But we are literally doing that.

When you talk about wanting to, you know, save the world, what is, I guess, the impact that dental health can have over, you know, overall health and well-being for people.

oral health is very important to your overall health.

It can affect, you know, jus the health of your entire body Working in dentistry.

I just really missed some of the underserved populations that I saw as a medical assistant.

And, looked for an opportunity to move into some of those areas, which in fact, that is the bread and butter of our population.

And just making sure that people who otherwise wouldn't have access to services do have access to services.

that's something that we do here each and every day.

And it makes me excited to come to work.

Do you think of dental care as separate from health care?

If so, you're not alone.

Much of our health care system does the same.

From the start, dentistr developed apart from medicine, with separate schools, separate training, and eventually separate insurance systems.

According to the American Medical Association.

Dental insuranc came onto the scene in the 1950s as a fringe benefit for labor unions.

When Medicare and Medicaid were developed in 1965, dental coverage was largely excluded.

As industry leaders rallie against government involvement over fears of pricing control, workload, autonomy and threats of a socialist movement.

today, Medicare covers a limited set of dental procedures, but access to care is often considered a luxury rather than necessity for consumers.

a 2024 study found that 72 million adults in the United States lacked dental insurance.

That's nearly triple the number of people without health insurance.

And underserved communitie are the most severely impacted.

So we wanted to know what would oral health look like if cost wasn't the deciding factor.

To find the answer.

We take a trip to Catherine' Health Center in West Michigan.

our mission is to help serve the unserved the underserved, the uninsured.

So our goal is to see everybody, regardless of, you know, ability to pay their socio economic status, gender or race, any of those things.

It's it's why we're here.

Catherine's healt center is a federally qualified health center that was founde actually as a free clinic joint venture between Saint Alphonsus Church, Trinity Health which at the time was Saint Mary's and Creston Neighborhood Association.

In 1996, we established as this free clinic to really respond to community need because the health department had moved down to Fuller and it required an hour long bus ride with some transfers.

And just created an access challenge for the Creston neighborhood.

We, grew through that, provided a lot of care to the community.

And, in 2007 became our own full organization.

which led us to expanding.

about 20 years ago, Well, they were all volunteers at that time.

So now we have four working sites.

We have medical, dental, behavioral health.

and then just have really grown through place based services as well.

So partnering with trusted community organizations to continue to provide and be able to provide better access for patients who like the brick and mortar clinics, just present different barriers for different populations.

And we really want to meet that need for the community.

And it wasn't about, how are we going to make sure that we're sustainable and that people are paying us for the services we're providing them?

And it wasn't about, how are we going to make sur that the people who have access anywhere els are going to have access here?

It was really about thos patients that need a safety net.

How are we that safety net?

And Catherine's has stuck to that mission.

In the fall, 29 years it's been in existence and is a huge par of why I'm proud to work here.

some of the uniqueness of Catherine's is our size and our ability to respond to community any quicker.

It's hard to move a really big ship.

And so as Catherine's just being able to really identify a community need and then work with partners to figure out how we can work together to meet that need, it's just fun.

It's something different every day.

And I truly feel, fulfilled at the end of every day.

The health center expanded to provide dental services in 2021, creating a pathway for oral health care regardless of someone's ability to pay.

Services include basics like routine exams, X-rays and cleanings to more extensive offerings, all of which would run up a hefty bill at a private practice.

Maggie, myself and Aaron were on the three of us here, but we're all about preventative as hygienists and we have doctors and assistants as well, and they're all kind of on the same page.

But we do cleanings, deep cleanings.

We do sealants for kids, adults.

We do full mouth series X-rays.

So there's a lot of things within the scope of dental hygiene that we perform here.

But as far as the dentist goes, they're able to do crowns, root canals, fillings, really pretty much anything under the sun besides like implants and major surgerie we're able to accomplish here.

for years, Medicaid, you know, didn't cover crowns or root canals for dental patients who were covered.

Now, maybe in middle of 2023, that started to change.

So we actually have a dentist here who's able to do those services and that's huge because before it was someone would come to the dentist.

They had a big area of decay where a tooth extracted.

Not anymore.

You know we can save that too is we can do a root canal.

We can do a crown.

And it's it's awesome to be a part of that.

It really is.

And to see that change each and every day with someone's smile, especially for someone who's never been to the dentist or it's been 20 years.

It's it's really great being a part of that.

And it makes me enjoy my job and being here, you Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I've been a hygienis for about almost nine years now, and when I got out of the school, I work as a traveling dental hygiene.

It' kind of like a traveling nurse.

And I worked in Washington, DC for about five months, but I worked at probably maybe 80 or 90 different offices when I was there, and it really opened my eyes to understand what it's like to be in a comfortabl setting and what you find out.

And everyone going to the dentist knows that as soon as you walk into a building, you can feel how that's going to go.

Your impression is made within the first 15 seconds of being there.

So when you walk into Catherine' and someone greets you, the lighting is nice.

This is a newer facility here at stream, and people want you to be there for your overall health.

You can feel that, and talking to the people at the front desk, front desk is probably the hardest job you know that anyone has.

And I'll say that I couldn't do it, and that's because they deal with so much from insurances to being the first person that you encounter, especially someone like you said, who was scared who's never been to the dentist.

So they play a huge role in that.

And by the time they get back to me, making them feel comfortable with chairs is extremely important.

But it's more about for me a a hygienist, patient education is probably my biggest thing, and I pride myself on being a great educator.

And what I'll do is I'll take x rays pictures so I can show the patient, hey, this is what's going on.

And some of the information might not be vital, but it's important for yo to see kind of what's going on, what's going inside, inside your mouth, so that making patients comfortable is definitely a big part of that.

But having them understand why they're here and why it's important to be here is probabl the most important thing to me.

I don't think people know a much as I wish that people did.

And I think that's really some of the work that we do in community health.

And as an actually just getting in front of schools, going and presenting to younger children about the importance of brushing your teeth, sending information home to parents in languages that also aren't just Englis because, you know, especially in this Catholic community here we have a very diverse population and of languages that are spoken at home.

And just making sure that people who come into our clinics also get that education here.

To the extent that we can, you know, there's some cultural barriers to where in non-Western cultures, often the dentist is, I need my tooth pulled.

And so really workin to educate and get upstream from that is some of the biggest barriers to us being able to provide preventative preventive care.

But then also what we're working to try to overcome and work together with the community to help them understand together the importance.

I can tell you a story every single day.

A patient that's changed fro and this isn't groundbreaking.

I don't like going to the dentist either.

Right.

It's it's not something new.

But that's the reason why it's so important for us to be comfortable and meet people where they're at, so we can help them change that perspective.

it literally flips all the time.

Yesterday I had a five yea old girl skip out of the office.

So it's it's moments like that that make you realize that there's a reason why we're here.

And I think everyone that I work with understands that as well.

So Yeah.

So we've known this for centuries as dental professionals, but it's definitely not something that's widespread and known to everybody.

I mean, it really plays a role specifically in inflammation, gingivitis, infection.

Just really the disruption of plaque and bacteria is so important.

But if you have, you know, extrem gingivitis or inflammation, it's a higher rate of heart attack, stroke.

It's harder to control blood sugar in diabetics, patients who are pregnant, there's preterm labor, low birth weight, the list goes on and on as far as the correlation between oral and overall health.

But not that many people know that.

So going back to education.

So I love being here to kind of show my patients.

This is why it's important.

The before and after pictures before and after a cleaning.

This is plaque.

This is bacteria.

This is why it's important to brush and floss.

And as a hygienist it's it's it's exciting.

So, The center for Disease Contro and Prevention notes disparities in oral health exist among all age groups by sex, poverty, race and ethnicity, education level, and smoking status.

These are preventable differences in the impact of disease or opportunities for treatment due to some type of disadvantage, like limited access to service or the ability to afford them.

As of 2024, around 5 million Americans live in dental health shortage areas, 67% o which are in rural communities.

The CDC also found untreate cavities were almost three times more common for children in low income households, compared to higher income homes.

In that same breath, gum disease was twice as common for low income adults compare to adults with a higher income.

But when numbers really skyrocke is within unhoused communities.

The study showed 90% of participants had an issue with oral health since becoming homeless, such as bleeding gums, holes in their teeth and abscesses.

Even more so, homeless persons are 12 times more likely to have dental problems.

Those numbers reflect a national crisis, but they're felt most deeply at a community level.

So Mel Trotter has the Community Partners medical clinic And just through over time, like Catherine's has been part of that conversation and we started about a year and a half ago, being there on Wednesday mornings for four hours as a space to provide access to primary care.

And in June, we were able to expand to full 40 hours a week of primary care.

And then also in the last month, we've added two hygienists there.

So there's two days a week of dental hygiene, which really provides an access point for the unhoused communit to access, oral health services and really bridge that gap.

Because our dental locations, unfortunately, are on the south end of town.

And so for that unhoused community, it can present additional barriers, to receiving care.

We're also at Crossroads Bible Church.

Tuesday mornings, providing primary care for 3 to 4 hours a week.

And we recently launched our mobile van, that provides care in the community on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the week.

we have bus passes for all the patients who are over at Mel Trotter.

So if I see a patient who is in pain, I can send them to 36th Street that day or even the next day to schedule them an appointment, get them an extraction, get them a filling, whatever they may need.

Medications can be done that day by the medical side.

And then next door we have streams here.

And the food bank serves this population for people who are have food insecurity.

So literally a one stop shop.

And I don't love usin that term.

But it it really is.

And I don't know o another place that's doing that There's a lot of thing that we're we're breaking down those barriers, really and we're meeting people there.

And it's it's incredible to see.

It's something that I've really neve I've heard of it a little bit.

When I was in school, some things that some people have done.

But what we're doing here is, I think, groundbreaking.

what woul you like to see in the future, in terms of community working together?

Yeah, I especially in the oral health space, there is a lot of community efforts already.

And I think just continuing those community efforts and even expanding on them, the Kent County Oral Health Coalition is very involved.

They meet quarterly.

But it's really a public health leaders in the dental space identifying ways to grow and ensure that the community has access to what they need.

Working with the librarie during Children's Dental Month, you know, just ways to get the word out there.

And then there's also th Michigan Oral Health Coalition.

I think there's opportunity with the kindergarten oral health assessment to ensure that families are connected to, dental care early on.

We think about prevention in schools, and kids are really how you get into prevention.

So those ar all very exciting things to me.

And then we also have Delta Dental Foundation and Michigan Dental Association Foundation have bee really supportive of our work, in providing center for Inclusive Dentistry as it relates to and, individuals with intellectua and developmental disabilities and so just continuing that work, they provided training through Penn Dental for our providers, to be able to offer just additional techniques to ideally keep individuals out of the operating room unnecessarily and provide as much car as we can in the dental clinic, which is great, and even for those patients not having to have that additional, trauma, really, of having to go into the hospital and then be under anesthesia to receive dental services.

Yeah.

So the ability for everyone to be seen, regardless of race, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, that's really the whole goal, right?

And for me, it's simple.

And for all my colleagues, it's that simple to I mean, kindergarten and all that.

I think taught me, treat others how you want to be treated.

And that's something tha I've lived by since I was five.

And it seems pretty straightforward to me.

And that's something that we do here each and every day.

And it makes me excited to come to work.

Thanks for watching.

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