A USDA grant to bring better dental care to rural areas. Gary Crawford tells us more in today’s This Land of Ours report.
“It’s an extraordinary opportunity for us to make sure that people living in rural and remote areas have access to the healthcare, the dental care and the mental healthcare that they need,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a visit to Seattle, Monday.
He was focusing on dental health because he was visiting the University of Washington School of Dentistry to announce a $1 million USDA grant to bolster its dual purpose program of bringing more dental services to more rural and remote areas.
“We see the expansion of this program potentially being able to help up to nearly 90 thousand additional residents access important dental care,” he said. He added that partially delivered by young dental students, the programs other purpose is encouraging young people who wish to be dentists to consider a career in a rural area.
It’s often very difficult to persuade young dental students to take up practice in rural areas.
Gary Crawford for the US Department of Agriculture.
Listen to Sabrina Halvorson’s This Land Of Ours program here.
Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet News Hour and The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.