Improving Oral Health for the Elderly: An Interdisciplinary Approach

This excellent new work confronts two important oral health policy concerns in the United States: the disparities in the oral disease burden and the inability of certain segments of the population to access oral health care. The book examines in depth this crucial yet frequently overlooked indicator of seniors’ quality of life. By combining a lifespan approach to health with a biopsychosocial perspective on health disparities, this book places oral health in the larger context of physical and mental well-being. Chapter authors emphasize elders’ distinct needs as a group, the interplay of factors contributing to the oral disease burden (from increased tooth retention to the absence of dental benefits as part of Medicare), and the necessity―and overall benefits―of improved service delivery and interdisciplinary care. The result is an invaluable set of recommendations to the clinical, research, and administrative communities that they can use to better understand and serve this steadily growing population.

Ira B. Lamster is Dean of the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine.

Mary E. Northridge is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Public Health and Associate Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She co-edited the forthcoming Springer book on The Health of Sexual Minorities: Public Health Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Populations.