Summit County Public Health’s Dental Sealant Project provides dental sealants in the Akron, Barberton, Cuyahoga Falls and Springfield school districts, as well as Bedford Public Schools.  The Project utilizes the Summit County Health District’s staff and portable dental equipment provided by the Ohio Department of Health. The expansion project allowed the Cuyahoga County Board of Health to assemble a dental sealant team to offer programming to apply sealants to students at schools in Cuyahoga County.

The target population includes elementary and middle school students in 31 Akron Public schools, 5 Bedford City schools, 3 Barberton City schools, 3 Cuyahoga Falls schools, 3 Coventry schools and Springfield Local schools.  The Cuyahoga County Expansion Program includes 6 East Cleveland, 6 Euclid, 8 Lakewood, 2 Maple Heights, 9 Parma and 4 SEL schools. We have also added the following for the new grant cycle: 2 Brooklyn, 4 North Olmsted, 2 Richmond Heights, and 2 Warrensville Heights schools. All schools involved have a free/reduced lunch rate of greater than 40%.  Few children in these schools have access to basic dental care. The goal of the program is to reduce pit and fissure cavities through the application of dental sealants, to provide basic dental education and to identify and refer critical dental problems, thus reducing untreated dental disease among students in need of services in Summit and Cuyahoga County.