Burton L. Edelstein

Burton L. Edelstein is president of the Children’s Dental Health Project, a DC-based nonprofit policy agency committed to improving children’s oral health and dental care. He is a professor of dentistry and of health policy and management at Columbia University and currently serves as a MACPAC (Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission) commissioner. After 20 years of clinical pediatric dental practice, Dr. Edelstein's career shifted to health policy when he was a 1996-1997 Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the Office of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, where he worked primarily on health coverage legislation. He has served the Department of Health and Human Services as an oral health consultant, chaired the U.S. Surgeon General’s Workshop on Children and Oral Health, and authored the child section of the Surgeon General’s Report. His research focuses on Medicaid/CHIP and on childhood oral health promotion. Dr. Edelstein is a graduate of SUNY Buffalo School of Dentistry, Harvard School of Public Health, and the Boston Children’s Hospital pediatric dentistry residency program. His work has been nationally recognized by a variety of associations including those representing dental educators, students, researchers, public health practitioners, and clinicians.