Delta Dental donates $50K to Ind. kids' dental program

Nov 4, 2010

A $50,000 grant that is the latest in a series of donations the Delta Dental Foundation has made to Indiana University (IU) School of Dentistry's Seal Indiana program will enable 700 Hoosier schoolchildren and preschoolers to receive examinations and preventive treatment aimed at preserving the oral health of youngsters who are the most at risk for dental disease in Indiana.

The Delta Dental Foundation has contributed nearly $250,000 to the IU dental school's preventive dentistry program since 2007, according to the university. Last year, Delta Dental funded about 20% of the 2,100 children who participated in the Seal Indiana program, according to Karen Yoder, Indiana University's director of community dentistry.

The most recent grant will be used to fund preventive services for children who do not have access to dental care by any other means.

Seal Indiana is the only nonprofit mobile dental sealant program serving Indiana statewide. The IU School of Dentistry launched this initiative in 2003 with start-up funds from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the Indiana State Department of Health. Since then, the school's faculty and students have been traveling in small teams to schools and Head Start programs throughout the state year-round to conduct dental examinations on children from low-income families, providing them with fluoride treatments, and placing protective sealants on vulnerable surfaces of their teeth as needed.

Seal Indiana has now cared for more than 20,000 children at more than 245 unduplicated sites in every region of Indiana and has made more than a thousand visits to Indiana's Title I schools.

Medicaid covers the Seal Indiana fees for slightly more than half of the preventive services through Hoosier Healthwise enrollments, and the program also receives substantial support from the Indiana State Department of Health, but grants from other government agencies and corporate foundations are essential to keep the wheels of Seal Indiana rolling throughout the state.