The American Dental Association (ADA) recently signed an agreement with Temple University, Philadelphia, to train new dental team members as part of a pilot program to improve oral health in underserved communities.
According to an announcement from the ADA, the Community Dental Health Coordinator (CDHC) is a member of the dental health team who works in communities where residents have limited access to dental care to improve their oral health.
The role of the CDHC is to provide a limited range of preventive dental care services, including screenings and fluoride treatments. The CDHC will also help patients navigate the health system and to access care by a dentist or an appropriate clinic and engage in educational activities to improve community members’ oral health habits.
The CDHC is a new dental team member whose merits are not yet known; but, according to the ADA, many studies of the community health worker (CHW) model indicate that they can make significant contributions to a community. Because the CDHC will function much like a CHW, the ADA believes that they, too, will have a positive impact on the oral health of their communities through education and outreach.
Over the next two years, Temple will recruit and train CDHCs from urban locations in Philadelphia, returning them to their communities to work as dental team members under the supervision of dentists. The ADA funds the program, which will train six students each year.
"We are delighted to welcome Temple’s participation," said ADA president Ron Tankersley, DDS, in the program’s announcement. "The pilot at Temple will help us understand the effectiveness of a dental health coordinator in underserved urban settings."
"Our aim is to ensure that the coordinator is able to bridge the gap between local cultures and health care systems. The CDHC can help improve people’s oral health habits and help patients navigate the social and bureaucratic barriers that prevent them from gaining access to available dental health services," said Amid I. Ismail, BDS, MPH, MBA, DrPH, dean of Temple University’s Kornberg School of Dentistry.
Temple is the third of three pilot CDHC program sites. Two other pilot programs are directed by University of Oklahoma, which is training CDHCs from rural areas, and the University of California at Los Angeles, which, in conjunction with Salish Kootenai College in Montana, is training students from American Indian communities.
