-
How Evidence-based Is US Dental Workforce Policy for Rural Communities?
10-02-20
Populations residing in rural America have lower rates of dental care utilization, higher rates of dental caries, less water fluoridation, and fewer dentists per capita when compared to those living in urban environments. Dental workforce shortages in rural communities are endemic, despite the...
-
Dental Workforce Trends: A National Study of Gender Diversity and Practice Patterns
08-28-20
The dental workforce is increasingly gender diverse. This study analyzed gender differences in dental practice using the American Dental Association’s 2010-2016 Masterfile and the 2017 Survey of Dental Practice. Between 2010 and 2016, the proportion of women working in dentistry increased from 24.5...
-
The Relationship Between Portable School‐Based Oral Health Prevention Services and Subsequent Oral Health Treatment
08-20-20
This study examines whether a portable, school‐based, preventive oral health program was associated with reduced use of treatment services over time. They obtained encounter data from Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC) in Connecticut that operates such a program. They followed cohorts of children...
-
Oral Health Workforce and Education in California
07-31-20
Dentists are healthcare professionals who diagnose and treat problems related to oral health. Common tasks include repairing or removing damaged teeth, filling cavities, performing root canals, placing sealants or whitening agents on teeth and making models and measurements for dental appliances (e...
-
A Qualitative Assessment of Barriers and Facilitators to Implementing Recommended Infant Nutrition Practices in Mumbai, India
07-27-20
Childhood malnutrition has been a longstanding crisis in Mumbai, India. Despite national IYCF (Infant Young Child Feeding) guidelines to promote best practices for infant/toddler feeding, nearly one-third of children under age five are stunted or underweight. To improve child nutrition,...
-
Chapter 8: The Oral Health Workforce
05-01-20
The dental team is becoming increasingly interprofessional, working collaboratively with medical, social, and mental health professionals. This chapter defines the types of personnel involved in the provision of oral healthcare services, explores the evolution of individuals engaged in oral...
-
Modernizing Scope-of-Practice Regulations — Time to Prioritize Patients
02-13-20
Ongoing payment reforms are pressing health systems to reorganize delivery of care to achieve greater value, improve access, integrate patient care among settings, advance population health, and address social determinants of health. Many organizations are experimenting with new ways of unleashing...
-
Constructing Matched Groups in Dental Observational Health Disparity Studies for Causal Effects
01-01-20
Electronic health record (EHR) systems provide investigators with rich data from which to examine actual impacts of care delivery in real-world settings. However, confounding is a major concern when comparison groups are not randomized. This article introduced a step-by-step strategy to construct...
-
Developing and Testing Electronic Health Record-Derived Caries Indices
11-01-19
Caries indices, the basis of epidemiologic caries measures, are not easily obtained in clinical settings. This study’s objective was to design, test, and validate an automated program (Valid Electronic Health Record Dental Caries Indices Calculator Tool [VERDICT]) to calculate caries indices from...
-
Reducing Educational Debt Among Underrepresented Physicians and Dentists
08-27-19
The rising cost of higher education raises concerns about equitable access to professional education for underrepresented minorities (URMs). This is problematic since URMs play critical roles in the health care field. They often speak patients’ languages and/or relate to them on both cultural and...
-
Practice Patterns of Postgraduate Dental Residency Completers From Select Long-Term HRSA-Funded Primary Dental Care Training Programs
07-15-19
The purpose of this study is to examine practice patterns of graduates of primary care dental postgraduate (PGD) training programs with a longstanding history of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funding. Primary care fields supported include Advanced Education in General...
-
Expansion of Dental Care for Low‐Income Children Through a Mobile Services Program
05-29-19
Although access to dental care has improved over time, many children still face difficulty in obtaining services. One strategy to increase access is through mobile dental services, often in collaboration with schools, Head Start programs, and school‐based health centers. This study evaluates a...
-
The Impact of Federal and State Policy on Oral Health Care Delivery in Long-Term Care Settings
11-21-18
Residents of long-term care (LTC) facilities have a significantly higher risk of poor oral health status compared with those living independently; moreover, the provision of oral health services to LTC residents is often limited. This study identifies and classifies state-level policies and funding...
-
The Pediatric Dental Workforce is Changing: What Does it Mean for Patient Outcomes?
06-02-17
Research examining productivity, quality and outcomes of traditional pediatric dental care are generally lacking. The literature shows that education, qualifications, and roles are changing with case examples of success, but what these changes portend for patient care remains an open question. New...
-
The Black Dentist Workforce in the United States
12-21-16
The Black population in the US experiences disparities in oral health. Black adults are twice as likely to have unmet dental needs when compared to Whites and face many barriers to accessing dental care. What role could the lack of racial diversity in the dental workforce play? This study finds...
-
The American Indian and Alaska Native Dentist Workforce in the United States
12-14-16
The purpose of this article is to describe the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) dentist workforce, the general practice patterns of these providers, and their contributions to oral health care for AI/AN and underserved patients.
Full Publication
-
Underrepresented Minority Dentists: Quantifying Their Numbers And Characterizing The Communities They Serve
12-05-16
The underrepresentation of Blacks, Hispanics or Latinos, and American Indians or Alaska Natives among dentists raises concerns about the diversity of the dental workforce, disparities in access to dental care and in oral health status, and social justice. We quantified the shortage of...
-
The Dental-Medical Divide
12-05-16
The importance of oral health for overall well-being cannot be overstated. Yet the US dental delivery system struggles to address effectively the two most common oral diseases (caries and periodontal disease), which are among the most prevalent of all chronic diseases and are largely preventable....
-
California Pioneers New Workforce Models
10-01-16
Registered Dental Hygienists in Alternative Practice (RDHAP) are licensed registered dental hygienists with specialized training that allow them to practice in settings outside of the traditional dental office. RDHAPs have been shown over the past 20 years to practice safely and effectively, and...
-
Evolving Delivery Models for Dental Care Services in Long-Term Care Settings: 4 State Case Studies
02-05-16
As the Baby Boomer Generation ages into long-term care (LTC) facilities, the number of individuals requiring dental care will rise, but these systems are not set up to adequately meet their needs. The supply of dentists is projected to increase; however, enormous barriers to dental care continue to...
-
Provider Attitudes Toward the Implementation of Clinical Decision Support Tools in Dental Practice
12-10-15
This is the first study to examine dental provider attitudes toward the implementation of CDS tools incorporated within an electronic health record. Provider attitudes toward CDS tools can shape the entire implementation process for better or worse. This study contributes to the literature by...
-
What Predicts Attitudes Toward New Workforce Models Among Underrepresented Minority Dentists?
07-29-15
What predicts attitudes toward new workforce models among underrepresented minority dentists? National Oral Health Conference. Oral Presentation
-
Defining Competencies for Education in Health Care Value: Recommendations from the University of California, San Francisco Center for Healthcare Value Training Initiative
04-11-15
Leaders in medical education have increasingly called for the incorporation of cost awareness and health care value into health professions curricula. Emerging efforts have thus far focused on physicians, but foundational competencies need to be defined related to health care value that span all...
-
Tracking Workforce Diversity in Dentistry: Importance, Methods, and Challenges
03-06-15
Concern abounds about whether the health care workforce is sufficient to meet changing demands spurred by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We project that by 2022 the health care industry needs three to four million additional workers, forty percent of which is related to demand growth under the ACA...
-
Dental Workforce Capacity and California's Expanding Pediatric Medicaid Population
11-01-14
The number of children eligible for Medicaid dental coverage in California will increase to nearly 5 million because of the Affordable Care Act the transition of nearly 880,000 children from California's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to Medicaid. This study assesses the dental capacity...
-
Direct Access to Midlevel Dental Providers: An Evidence Synthesis
06-20-14
Objectives: Direct access is a term that describes the ability of patients to seek health care from midlevel dental providers (MLDPs) without first seeing a dentist. The objective of this study was to synthesize the evidence for the effects and costs of direct access to MLDPs in a primary dental...
-
Beyond Pediatrics: Maintaining Oral Health Across the Lifespan
06-01-14
Oral health is directly related to systemic health, yet many Americans have limited to no access to dental health professionals. Nurse practitioners are in an excellent position to fill this void by providing caries risk assessments, chemical therapy to prevent progression of caries, and...
-
Shaking Up the Dental Safety-Net: Elimination of Optional Adult Dental Medicaid Benefits in California
02-01-14
Center Researchers Beth Mertz and Cynthia Wides published this article in the February 2014 Supplemental Issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. This issue celebrates the 25th year of the journal's publication and focuses on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act....
-
Long-Term Outcomes of a Dental Postbaccalaureate Program: Increasing Dental Student Diversity and Oral Health Care Access
05-01-13
The University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry established the Dental Postbaccalaureate Program in 1998 to provide reapplication assistance to students from economically and/or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds who were previously denied admission to dental school. The goals...
-
Leadership Development: A Critical Need in the Dental Safety Net
12-17-12
This research brief presents a qualitative assessment of the leadership training needs of dental directors from community health centers in California. This brief explores dental directors’ roles and responsibilities, their primary challenges as dental directors, and their perceptions of their own...