CHICAGO, June 13, 2025 — NORC at the University of Chicago has released groundbreaking findings from its study on the oral health of children with special health care needs, funded by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. This comprehensive study sheds light on the unique challenges these children face and underscores opportunities for targeted interventions and policy changes.

The research, conducted over the past two years, involved extensive data collection and analysis from a diverse group of parents of children with special health care needs (including monolingual Spanish-speaking parents), dental experts, and advocates across the United States. Findings include:

• High Prevalence of Oral Health Challenges: By analyzing data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, NORC found that children with special health care needs are more likely to experience oral health problems than their peers: 19 percent of children with special health care needs had chronic oral health problems compared to 13 percent of children without special health care needs. Children with more medically complex health conditions were significantly more likely to have chronic oral health problems (29 percent) than other children. 
  
  Children with special health care needs were also more than twice as likely to have teeth in poor or fair condition than children without special health care needs. 
• Barriers to Dental Care: Focus groups with parents and caregivers of children with special health care needs found that many families face substantial barriers in accessing dental services, including financial constraints, lack of specialized dental providers, and inadequate insurance coverage. Parents described receiving limited guidance and support from dental providers on how best to care for their child’s oral health at home.
  
  Parents also said dental providers need additional training on how to care for children with special health care needs, desensitization strategies for children with behavioral challenges, and tailored support and dental tools for maintaining oral health and hygiene routines at home.  
• Recommendations for Improvement: NORC convened dental care experts, state and federal policymakers, and advocates for children with special health care needs to identify key strategies to address these challenges. The expert panel suggested enhancing training for dental professionals to better serve children with special health care needs, improving insurance coverage for needed services, and increasing research into dental interventions that would improve how dental care is delivered to children with special health care needs.

Robbie Dembo, senior research scientist and the lead researcher on the project, said of these findings: “It is well-documented that oral health is an integral part of well-being. Our research highlights a critical gap in the oral health care system that requires policy and public health interventions to fill.”