A Sugar-Sweetened-Beverage Tax Campaign: The Key Role of the Dental Community

ABSTRACT

On November 8, 2016, the citizens of Oakland enacted an initiative imposing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). The passage was the culmination of interdisciplinary efforts, including critical support from the local dental society, as well as individual dentists. Supporters were motivated by the impact of the consumption of soda and other SSBs on children’s health, the long-standing epidemic of dental caries, and the emerging epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. This article details how the critical support and advocacy of dentistry in collaboration with a wider health professional network and the broader community led to the successful passing of the sugar-sweetened-beverage tax.

KEYWORDS:

• Soda tax campaign
• dentistry
• dental community
• advocacy
• sugar-sweetened beverages

Acknowledgments

Diane Woloshin, Annie Campbell Washington, David Johnson, David Jalen, Joanne Lagos.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jared I. Fine

Jared I. Fine, is a public health dentist and the former dental health administrator of the Alameda County Public Health Department where he served the Public Health Department for nearly 40 years. After graduation from dental school at Maryland, he served in the US Navy Dental Corps at Treasure Island. He completed his Masters in Public Health at UC Berkeley and dental public health residency at UCSF. He is recognized in California and nationally as a visionary leader in public health policy, program development, advocacy and community organization. He initiated Alameda County’s WIC oral health program. He led Alameda County in the development of it’s first 5 year strategic Plan for Oral Health, which is now being replicated throughout California. He championed the successful 2016 Soda Tax Campaign in Oakland and served on the Oakland Sugar Sweetened Beverage Advisory Commission for 2 years. Dr. Fine chaired the non profit Center for Oral Health. He has served on the Board of the Alameda County Dental Society since 1986 and it was from which he initiated the development of “California Dental Association’s 7 Year Strategic Plan to Overcome Barriers in Access to Care”. Most recently he has served as a consultant to Alameda County’s Healthy Teeth Healthy Communities, Dental Transformation Initiative pilot project serving as the County Dental Health Ambassador.

Darlene G. Fujii

Darlene G. Fujii, has been with the Alameda County Public Health Department (ACPHD) for over 40 years and has been the Director of the Division of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention since 2020. Her career with ACPHD includes more than 20 years in the Office of Dental Health and in Nutrition Services as the assistant director for 10 years. Her work has focused on a range of public health areas including chronic disease prevention with a special focus on sugar sweetened beverage policy, school-based health promotion, oral health and communicable disease. Darlene is a Registered Dietitian and holds a Master’s degree in Education from Tufts University.

Baharak Amanzadeh

Baharak Amanzadeh, is a member of the California Oral Health Technical Assistance Center, and an Assistant Clinical Professor at Univerity of California San Francisco. She has been the Dental Health Administrator at the Alameda County Department of Public Health where she planned, evaluated, and oversaw the dental public health programs. She is an independent consultant in dental public health and works with multiple organizations and local jurisdictions to conduct oral health needs assessments, develop community oral health improvement plans, and guide the implementation and evaluation of such plans. She focuses on school oral health programs and dental care coordination and strives to engage the communities to build the infrastructures to combat oral health disparities. Previously, she directed the Community Based Dental Education program at UCSF School of Dentistry. Dr. Amanzadeh has an extensive background in working with underserved communities, designing educational, preventive programs and integrative systems of care in the areas of children’s oral health and school oral health programs, dental care coordination and community health workers, the oral health of pregnant women, seniors, people with disabilities, and those experiencing homelessness, motivational interviewing, and Trauma-Informed Care.

Larry J. Platt

Larry J. Platt, as a pediatrician and an officer in the US Public Health Service, Dr. Platt has fathered the National Health Service Corps and worked on designing and developing a community health center in Mississippi. He was awarded a Global Community Health Fellowship by the Public Health Service. During that time, he was Chief Resident in Social Pediatrics at Montefiore Hospital in New York City and a Martin Luther King Health Center pediatrician. Throughout his career, Dr. Platt has provided visionary leadership in public health policy and programs at the national, state, and local levels. Some of his work includes: family health studies and program development for children with chronic diseases at NIMH, serving as chief of the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health at the Ohio Department of Health, and conducting child health policy analysis for the Public Health Services Maternal and Child Health Bureau at the Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California – San Francisco Medical School. Dr. Platt was the Executive Director of the Dental Health Foundation, a non-profit agency trying to improve the oral health status in California through public health efforts. In 2016, he co-chaired the Coalition for Healthy Oakland Children, sponsoring the successful initiative for a soda tax in Oakland. Dr. Platt is a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.