The dental section provides clinical preventative and restorative services to children between 2 – 18 years of age who meet the economic eligibility guidelines. The children’s dental clinics also accept Medicaid assignments. Emergency dental care for any child is available during the normal weekday schedule. The dental section contracts with the School Board of Broward County to provide dental service to children enrolled in the Head Start and Early Head Start programs.

The dental section is the lead agency for Ryan White Care Act Dental Services and provides four clinical locations for qualified patients. Three of the clinic sites serve adults and the fourth site serves children under age 18, as well as the caregivers of the infected child. All of these sites also have ambulatory medical services available and permit the integration of dental health services with the general medical services provided to those with HIV disease and AIDS. In addition to clinical services, the dental section also refers qualified patients to specialty dental offices for special types of dental care not provided in the clinics.

Since 1972, the dental section has been involved in the implementation of community water fluoridation throughout the county. From the passage of County Ordinance 72-17 in November 1972, until the present time, all public and privately owned water systems have initiated water fluoridation. This is the first county in the state that has 100% of its community water supplies with decay-preventing fluoridation.

In October 2004, the dental section entered into a contract with Memorial Health Care System to provide preventive and limited routine dental care for eligible adults referred to the clinic. The Memorial Health Care System Primary Care Physician makes the referral based on pre-established criteria. At present adult dental care is only available at the South Regional Health Center dental clinic. The dental section coordinates with various Councils and agencies to provide improved oral health care to the citizens of the county.

The following list of agencies participate in this effort:

• The Broward County Health Department 
• The Broward County School Board 
• The Broward County Dental Association 
• The Broward Dental Research Clinic 
• The Broward Community College, Dental Assisting & Hygiene Program 
• NOVA Southeastern University, College of Dental Medicine 
• The Children’s Medical Service 
• The Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center 
• North Broward Hospital District
• Memorial Primary Care Center 

The dental section supports the WIC Program in providing patient information about “Early Childhood Dental Caries”, which was previously known as “Baby Bottle or Nursing Bottle Tooth Decay”. This malady affects children prior to their third birthday by decaying their upper front Primary teeth. It is associated with the prolonged use of the nursing bottle and high sugar-containing drinks for the very young individual. The WIC Program provides nutritional counseling to the mothers of young children and is the ideal information source for dealing with this preventable disease.