Media FAQs, Oral Health Stats and Requests for Interviews

AzDA’s mission is to provide leadership, resources and advocacy to ensure the success of our members and the promotion of oral health.

If you are a member of the media and would like a responsive, authoritative source for your next assignment, contact the Arizona Dental Association (AzDA). Caries, water fluoridation, dentistry innovations, dental phobias, access to care, dentists providing charitable care in the community, dental tourism, or responses to new studies - if your story involves dentistry or the oral health of Arizonans, you owe it to your readers/viewers to contact AzDA for comment before your story runs. AzDA has been Arizona's voice of dentistry for over 100 years, and over 70% of the dentists practicing in the state are members.

For media inquiries related to AzDA or to be added to the AzDA media list, email the Manager of Communications at managingeditor@azda.org or call (480) 344-5777, ext 314.

Journalists may also contact the American Dental Association’s media center by visiting www.ada.org or by calling (312) 440-2806 or emailing: mediarelations@ada.org.

AzDA At-A-Glance. The Arizona Dental Association

• Is a nonprofit professional organization
• Was established in 1909
• Represents over 2,000 dentists statewide
• Is an affiliate of the American Dental Association (ADA)
• Is made up of three component societies: Central Arizona Dental Society, Northern Arizona Dental Society and Southern Arizona Dental Society
• Annually provides over $500,000 of donated dental care to underserved Arizonans through the association’s charitable arm, the Arizona Dental Foundation

AzDA provides the following services to member dentists

• Marketing and demographic data that can help members locate or re-locate their practice to an area that offers long-term viability
• Provides valuable pre-screening of products and services such as companies that provide business consulting, insurance, etc. through AzDA Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of AzDA
• Offers an opportunity for dentists to participate in access-to-care issues through legislative action and volunteerism
• Makes available high-quality Continuing Education credit opportunities in order to maintain licensure requirements and to provide a high level of care for patients

AzDA provides the following services to the public

• Refer patients to dentists in their area
• Low-cost clinic referral
• Information and research on a variety of treatment options

Oral Health Facts

Untreated dental decay can cause pain and tooth loss, which in turn is associated with poor nutrition, impaired speech development, absence from school, inability to concentrate and reduced self esteem.²

• More than half of Arizona’s kindergarten children (52%) have a history of tooth decay, higher than the national average for 5 year old children (36%).
• Almost two out of three third grade children (64%) have a history of tooth decay, compared to 52% of third grade children in the general U.S. population.
• More than a ¼ of Arizona’s kindergarten and third grade children (28%) have untreated tooth decay; slightly higher than the national average of 22%.
• About 44% of Arizona’s third grade children have at least one dental sealant on a permanent molar tooth; higher than the prevalence among the general U.S. third grade population (32%).
• Some oral health disparities still exist in Arizona with children attending lower-income schools and American Indian and Hispanic children having the highest prevalence of decay experience and untreated tooth decay.
• Arizona has been successful in efforts to address disparities in the prevalence of dental sealants.