In 2022, the federal government announced a commitment of $5.3B to provide dental care for the uninsured, beginning with children under 12 years of age. Now referred to as the Interim Canada Dental Benefit (CDB), the program targets those under 12 years of age from families with annual incomes less than $90,000 and without private dental insurance. Nearly half a million children will benefit from this program.

A new study led by UM Professor and CHRIM scientist Dr. Robert Schroth and the Healthy Smile, Happy Child team reviewed federal data from the Government of Canada on public uptake and applications made to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) during the first year of the Interim CDB.

Data for the first year of the Interim CDB was accessed from the Government of Canada Open Data Portal through Open Government Licence—Canada and showed that the federal funding is improving access to care for children under 12 years by addressing the affordability of dental care.

During the first year of the program, a total of 204,270 applications were approved, which were made by 188,510 unique applicants for 321,000 children under 12 years of age. Over $197M was distributed by the CRA, with the majority of funding going to applicants in the province of Ontario. The greatest number of applications were from Ontario and the least were from the territories.

This evaluation of federal data from the Government of Canada Open Data Portal reveals that there has been considerable uptake by families for the Interim CDB and significant expenditures by the Canadian government to support dental costs for children under 12 years of age from families with net incomes below $90,000.

This is a positive development as the 2007–2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey revealed that nearly one-third of Canadians lack dental insurance.

That report also revealed that 57% of children 6–11 years of age had dental caries, having on average 2.5 teeth affected by decay. Further analysis showed that dental visits to address dental problems in children accounted for approximately 226 million lost school days.

This investigation shows the importance by which Governments and oral health professions need to address other dimensions of access to care including accessibility, availability, accommodation, awareness, and acceptability of oral health care.