Preventing Poverty with Dentistry

A blog from Montclair State University’s sociology department did a bit of research out of self interest, and found a quiz that predicted your socioeconomic class from the Christian Science Monitor here.  What is interesting is their interpretation of the results and the conclusions they make inferring to people who regularly visit the dentist:

16. Have you visited a dentist in the past year?

A “Yes” answer counted towards the upper end of the social class scale.  

people with more than a high school education were twice as likely to have visited the dentist in the past year. Those living below the poverty line or without a high school education were also twice as likely to be edentulous, or toothless.

Or as Heritage-Rubio would put it, “Visiting the dentist once a year reduced a person’s probability of being poor by 50%.”  

Using the same conservative perspective, we can easily see the logic of the dentistry-poverty connection and its implication for policy.  People with bad teeth or no teeth wind up with bad jobs or no jobs. They are not attractive as potential employees. Because of their poor personal decisions regarding dental care, they suffer economically. If only they would visit the dentist annually, they would almost certainly rise from poverty. Needless to say, the government should not do anything directly to alleviate their poverty or dental care.  These are matters of personal virtue, and the government’s role should be only to exhort them to visit the dentist regularly.

This may be the most political or opinioned blog I post, but to put it more lightly – I would encourage everyone to seek routine dental care as it is an indicator of high quality life decisions, decisions that will absolutely lower your risk of poverty, not to mention unhealthy teeth and lacking of confidence to smile to the world and seize its opportunities.  Whether it’s with our team at Smithfield, or a dentist in your local community.