After attending public hearings held by the NH House Committee on Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs and the House Committee on Resources, Recreation & Development, UNH Nutrition student, Max LaPointe ’21, leads a conversation on how dental health influences our overall health.

Max interviews Dr. Maggie Dylewski Begis, Clinical Professor in UNH’s Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Systems and Director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics. They discuss how to evaluate health information we read on the internet and try to figure out …what the deal is with fluoride?

Resources:

· HB 103 establishing a dental benefit under the state Medicaid program: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/Results.aspx?q=1&txtbillnumber=HB103&txtsessionyear=2021

· HB 611 abolishing fluoridation in water: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/Results.aspx?q=1&txtbillnumber=HB611&txtsessionyear=2021

· Recommended tutorial for learning how to evaluate internet health information: https://medlineplus.gov/webeval/webeval.html

· Tool to see which water systems add fluoride: https://nccd.cdc.gov/DOH_MWF/Default/Default.aspx

· Alaska community water fluoridation study: https://bmcoralhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12903-018-0684-2

· CA adult Medicaid dental study: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.1358