In July 2025, Benevis, a leading dental care and orthodontic service provider, released a new white paper titled “Poverty Affects Oral Health”, focusing on how socioeconomic status continues to affect the fairness of access to dental services for the public, especially children, and has a profound impact on lifelong health.
The white paper systematically reviews the inequality in oral health among children, adolescents and adults in the United States, and reveals through solid data that children living in poverty are more likely to suffer from oral diseases such as tooth decay, which in turn forms long-term and serious health disparities in adulthood.
For example, data show that the rate of dental caries among poor children aged 2 to 5 is twice that of non-poor children, and the incidence of untreated tooth decay among adolescents from low-income families is also twice that of high-income adolescents.
In the elderly stage, this gap widens further, and the number of untreated tooth decay among low-income elderly people is three times that of high-income people.
“As a frontline dentist, we’ve long recognized the profound impact poverty has on smiles,” said Dale Mayfield, DDS, chief dental officer at Benevis.
While Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) have made some progress in improving access to care for some children, significant gaps remain and new barriers have emerged.”
Benevis has been committed to providing high-quality oral care to underserved communities, especially children and families who rely on Medicaid and CHIP. With this white paper, the agency hopes to further promote policy development and expand access to comprehensive oral health services for vulnerable groups.
The report also points out that the U.S. dental health system has serious shortcomings in protecting vulnerable populations. Although Medicaid and CHIP provide basic protection in states, more than two-thirds of U.S. dentists still refuse to provide treatment services to children on Medicaid due to uneven resource allocation.
In response to this situation, Benevis provides dental services to more than 5 million patients each year, 82% of whom are Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries, highlighting its key role in improving the oral health of low-income groups.
Benevis emphasized that in order to achieve universal oral health equality, it is necessary to go beyond single policy measures and systematically address socioeconomic inequality, lack of health education, and uneven distribution of basic medical resources to ensure that all children, regardless of their background, have the opportunity to have a healthy and confident smile.