The Lion's Pride Volume 9 (January 2018) | Page 59

to improve dental health care coverage and provide them with better oral
health outcomes. The statement is an example of the “post hoc ergo
propter hoc” logical fallacy because it confuses correlation for causation.
People who use this argument ignore or aren’t informed about many of
the other causes of poor dental outcomes. Although there is a high
correlation between having inadequate dental hygiene habits and
needing more corrective procedures, there are also many other causes
that are independent of dental hygiene.
There are different ways that people can have negative oral health
outcomes, even if they have good dental habits. For example, expensive
dental procedures are not always the result of skipping checkups or not
brushing your teeth every day. Malocclusions are a simple example of a
dental outcome that is not always caused by poor dental hygiene. When
the contact between upper and lower teeth is misaligned, it’s called a
malocclusion, also known as over/underbite, crowded teeth, etc.
Malocclusions can be caused by genetics, injuries, tumors, or even
habits like sucking your thumb and prolonged bottle feeding that can
change the shape of a person’s jaw or the position of their teeth. Fixing
occlusions can involve removing or reshaping teeth, installing braces, or
in some cases surgery to reshape the jaw. These procedures can be
prohibitively expensive, particularly if a patient doesn’t have dental
insurance.