According to the recent article “Offering Oral Health Services in Your Office” in Family Practice Management, family practitioners have been addressing children’s oral health for years. But, there is a lack of guidelines for physicians to effectively incorporate oral health services into their primary care practices. To help with this, the article offers suggestions for better incorporating oral health at the family physician’s office. Suggestions for a medical assistant or nurse: Assist parents in completing [...]

Shared-use agreements are a good way to improve community health and well-being by increasing families' access to recreational facilities. A shared-use agreement is a formal agreement between a school and a community agency for the use of facilities, such as gymnasiums, tracks, cafeterias, and athletic fields, during non-school hours. Schools can share spaces with the YMCA or city government, for example, with the benefit of shared costs and protection from liability. The Kentucky Cancer Consortium and Kentucky [...]

This post originally appeared as a guest column in the Grant County News. By Lynne M. Saddler, MD, MPH Think about the last time you had to run a quick errand. Maybe you went to the post office, library, store or a nearby friend’s house. How did you get there? Odds are, you drove your car. American society is definitely car-dependent. In the 2010 Future of Transportation Study, conducted by Transportation for America, 73 percent [...]