Why Dental Care?
Untreated oral carries is Nepal’s most prevalent childhood disease, exceeding even malnutrition. 69% of adults over fifty suffer from oral disease, making it one of the most widespread and least attended health crises in the country.
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Oral decay is linked to malnutrition, cardiac disease, diabetes, low birth weight, and depressed immune competency. These are all all high level public health issues that absorb tremendous funding. But oral health is addressed almost exclusively by way of transient camps and mobile clinics – if at all.
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Oral disease is not all that hard to treat. JOHC has taken rural dentistry techniques developed for remote regions and packaged them in to a model that allows them to be delivered sustainably by rural communities. The result?
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A rural dental clinic run by a local health care provider with two years of mentoring and supervision; brushing programs and oral health education taught in every primary school; dental hygiene products in rural shops; widespread community awareness.