United Community Health Center (UCHC) held a ribbon cutting ceremony on June 18, at 206 E. 188 St., to launch its Mobile Dental Health Unit which serves as the nexus to the center’s “Driving Access to Care” program. The highly anticipated second addition was made possible by funding from U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres and the New York City City Council’s Bronx Delegation.
The mobile Dental Health Unit is part of a mobile fleet that provides state-of-the-art, comprehensive, high-quality, affordable, primary, specialty services, behavioral health and now dental health care to the most vulnerable residents of the Bronx. This program will extend UCHC’s reach to more schools, public housing developments, homeless shelters, senior centers and more. UCHC’s unprecedented dental health delivery infrastructure will help improve health outcomes for Bronx residents through
neighborhood targeted direct services and health education.
Despite the profound health care needs facing the Bronx, primary care and dental health services are distributed unevenly and substantial shortage exists in several
neighborhoods. With approximately 341 dentists in the Bronx, 25 dentists per 100,000 population, the borough’s ability to treat and care for its residents is significantly fewer
then the New York City wide ratio of 74 per 100,000 population; consequently ranking as the “least healthy” county of all 62 counties in New York State for 10 consecutive years by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
