CNOHR Affiliated Projects
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Under the direction of Dr. Spero Manson, the Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Health Disparities implements an interdisciplinary, culturally grounded research program focused on understanding broad determinants of health including environmental, social, and behavioral factors. The ultimate goal of the research program is to identify the factors influencing health disparities and to develop targeted interventions that can reduce these inequalities. The oral health project is one of seven pilot research projects in this program funded by the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIH).
This project addresses the oral health of infants and toddlers through partnership with dental and pediatric well child clinics on a Southwestern American Indian Reservation The oral health program uses a client-centered counseling technique called motivational interviewing to support positive oral health behaviors with mothers on behalf of their young children. Collaboration between the medical and dental clinics improves delivery of services for infants and toddlers to put them on a path to have healthy teeth for life.
Children’s Oral Health Partnership
Under the direction of Drs. Joan O’Connell and Judith Albino, the Children’s Oral Health Partnership aims to improve oral health and decrease Early Childhood Caries through a culturally competent, cost-effective intervention focused on education, prevention, and treatment of dental disease. Funded by the Colorado Trust in 2006, with in-kind support and active participation from the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine faculty and students, the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health have worked with more than a dozen community organizations to plan and implement this program among Denver’s high-risk children. Due to documented oral health needs among American Indian children and those from economically-disadvantaged families, the first participants in the program are three schools that provide the Indian Education Program and also have high percentages of families enrolled in the free and reduced-price school lunch program are the first participants. All children from ECE through second grade are invited to participate.
The intervention has three main components: education of children, education of the parents/guardians, and oral health services that include screening and referrals for treatment, and the provision fluoride varnish. The school-based intervention provides services at a location where children and families routinely go, thereby minimizing the intervention costs per child. We are currently in the second year of a four-year intervention. This year approximately 460 students and their families are receiving oral health education and 307 children (67% of all children) are enrolled in the oral health service component of the study. A secondary goal of the program is to provide public health training to dental students who volunteer with the study.
