Week in Review: Improving your SEO | Pediatric dentist numbers to grow | Oral health overhaul

Dear DrBicuspid Member,

If you'd asked Dr. Mikaeya Kalantari about search engine optimization (SEO) when she graduated from dental school, she admits she wouldn't have known how to answer. Now, as a pediatric dentist and successful blogger, she has come to understand how important SEO is for a practice. She shares four tips to help yours.

Pediatric dentistry was one of the most prominent topics this week on DrBicuspid.com. Our coverage kicked off with a simple question: How many pediatric dentists do we need in the U.S.? New research commissioned by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry finds that the number of U.S. pediatric dentists is expected to grow by more than 60% through 2030. Without major policy shifts, this drastic increase in supply could overtake demand for services.

Expanding the scope from the U.S. to the world, an international team of researchers is calling for oral healthcare reform. These researchers, including one from the U.S., studied the global oral health burden and suggested some solutions, including universal oral healthcare coverage, innovative oral healthcare provider models, and refocused interventions.

According to the lead researcher and colleagues who are calling for reform, the public health responses to oral healthcare crises have been largely inadequate, inequitable, and costly. You may agree or disagree on some of their proposals, but I think we may all agree that a concerted, strategic effort to improve global oral healthcare is a good idea.

Finally, treating early childhood caries is crucial. Both atraumatic restorative treatment and silver diamine fluoride are known as inexpensive methods of treating these caries, but which is more effective when there is limited treatment access? Researchers found one treatment preferable.