Social Mission: The Role of Health Workforce in Addressing Health Equity
Candice Chen, MD, MPH, Board Chair, Beyond Flexner Alliance
Health workforce – the makeup, distribution, selection, education, and training of health care professionals – is an underlying health equity issue. Insufficiencies in different disciplines and specialties, geographic locations, and service to underserved populations negatively affect access and contribute to ongoing health disparities. The behavior of our health professions education programs – the way we recruit, train, and role model for future health professionals – influences career choices and imprints behaviors that can either undermine or advance health equity. Social mission is the contribution of a health professions school in its mission, programs, and the performance of its graduates, faculty and leadership in advancing health equity and addressing the health disparities of the society in which it exists. This session will focus on the role of health workforce in addressing health equity, health workforce policies that both contribute to health workforce inequities and that aim to address health workforce challenges, and on the role of health professions schools in addressing health workforce equity.
What Do Dental Public Health Professionals Need to Know About Racism as a Public Health Issue?
Derek Griffith, PhD, Founder and Director of the Center for Research on Men’s Health, Vanderbilt University
In this session, the presenter will highlight the importance of naming racism as a scientific construct, and the significance of dental public health practitioners learning to understand and apply racism as a determinant of population, community and individual oral health. Racism remains a frequently discussed but widely contested determinant of health. This presentation is not about labeling individuals or discussing specific events; rather, the goal is to frame a pattern of outcomes that cannot be adequately characterized via other means. These explanations for patterns become embedded in individual and institutional assumptions, practices and policies that directly and indirectly affect health. Though racism has gained increasing acceptance as a scientific construct, there remains considerable debate and discussion about how racism can be defined in public health and can be applied in public health practice. The presenter will discuss the importance of racism for understanding how we define why there are differences in patterns of health outcomes within, between and across groups overtime. Various forms of discrimination share some fundamental commonalities, but racism is unique in important ways that have implications for health. Racism is not a function of individual beliefs or behavior, but a systemic set of beliefs and narratives that endure and adapt over time. As the notion of race has evolved and the suggestion that racism shapes an event or an outcome has become more political and contested, there remains a need to help dental public health professionals have the knowledge and language to effectively engage in discussions of racism as a public health issue. The presenter also will highlight the importance of understanding the implications of framing the root causes of health inequities as racism for how we might intervene to achieve health equity, and maintain equity in oral health and other health outcomes once achieved.
Using Digital Advocacy Strategies to Promote Public Health & Health Equity
Amelie Ramirez DrPH, Director, Salud! America
As public health professionals, we must shift focus from the downstream (individual chronic disease treatment) to upstream (prevention strategies that address social determinants of health and the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and play). This is especially true for Latinos. About one of every three people will be Latino by 2050. Yet this population often faces“upstream” challenges and conditions of poverty, including low income, employment, child care, health care, and less access to stable housing, safe transit, healthy food, places to play than their peers. Latinos then face “downstream” effects. These are heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, respiratory conditions, obesity, arthritis, pedestrian fatalities, and more. That is why we at Salud America! (https://salud-america.org/) developed an online network of 250,000+ Latino health-focused parents, community and school leaders, and health care providers. Salud empowers this network toward behavior change and grassroots advocacy through its adaptable multimedia health equity communication structure, which utilizes digital content curation to rapidly create and disseminate digital, video, and other content on its website, email, and social media. Content includes culturally relevant, theory-driven peer model stories and videos on healthy change, news on policy and system changes, etc.; interactive "action packs" to spur community organizations toward big on-the-ground healthy changes; multimedia campaigns to engage people to raise their voice for system change; social media messaging to advance health behaviors on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube; #SaludTues Tweetchats to engage an average of 8 million Twitter users in just 1 hour a week; and the #SaludTalks Podcast, the only podcast focused solely on Latino health equity. We found a strong relationship between the degree of engagement in our communication/content and advocacy actions at four levels (school, local, state, federal).
Dental Care for the LGBTQ+ Community: Achieving Dental Health Equity
Tyler Sanslow, DMD, MPH, Fenway Health
Individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or other (LGBTQ+) have historically struggled with access to oral health care. Progress for the LGBTQ+ community is one of the leading civil rights issues of our time, with They being named as Merriam Webster’s 2019 Word of the Year. While public health efforts increasingly focus on reducing health disparities and increasing access to care, many areas still lack dental health equity for LGBTQ+ individuals. It is critical to understand the language and terminology associated with the LGBTQ+ population in order to address LGBTQ+ health disparities, social determinants of health and access to care. The health needs of the LGBTQ+ population are relatively the same as the general population; it is the nuanced approach, considerations, and practices that differ in providing inclusive care to the underserved LGBTQ+ population.
Panel Discussion: Serving individuals with Disabilities
Scott Howell, DMD, MPH, Special Care Dentistry Association
More than 50 million Americans are diagnosed with a disabling condition. Of those, over 25 million experience a severely physically limiting disability. Individuals with disabilities experience a disproportionate burden of inequity, particularly within the health care system. Access to care and limitations in clinical skills often lead to complicated care delivery within this special population. This session focuses on promoting advocacy, elevating clinical knowledge, and innovating health delivery to meet the needs of individuals with disabilities.
Panel Discussion: Serving individuals with Disabilities
Dennis Borel, Executive Director, Coalition for Texans with Disabilities
More than 50 million Americans are diagnosed with a disabling condition. Of those, over 25 million experience a severely physically limiting disability. Individuals with disabilities experience a disproportionate burden of inequity, particularly within the health care system. Access to care and limitations in clinical skills often lead to complicated care delivery within this special population. This session focuses on promoting advocacy, elevating clinical knowledge, and innovating health delivery to meet the needs of individuals with disabilities.
Keynote Address-Confronting Inequity Through Global Health Policies
Lois Cohen, PhD, Consultant with the National Institutes of Health
Addressing oral health inequities through a global health lens, while understanding national, regional and local challenges, is posited as a necessary prerequisite for finding solutions to advance social justice. By examining the historical context for such a global oral health perspective and the specific roles of the World Health Organization and other international entities, we can better grasp how oral health might be integrated into global health movements and associated initiatives and how that integrated approach might be applied at national and sub-national levels. Extant global oral health policies and those in development will be reviewed as well as the basic concepts underlying their existence. The need to build evidence globally and to mobilize both political and social will around the evidence-platform will be explored in order to understand how policies are both formulated and promulgated effectively.
Rural Oral Health Care Access: A National Policy Perspective
Alan Morgan, MPA, CEO of the National Rural Health Association
Rural health is not simply a small version of urban, but rather a unique health care delivery environment. This session will examine the current state of rural health in America, with a focus on opportunities and barriers for expanding rural oral health care access. Current relevant national policy research and data will explore the current state of rural oral health access, as well as policy options under consideration to address these health care disparities.
Healthy People 2020 and Beyond—New Directions
Gina Thornton-Evans, DDS, MPH
Healthy People 2030 marks the fifth iteration of this national initiative to monitor the health of the nation. Objectives related to oral health were first introduced in 1979 focusing on fluoridation and dental caries. The Healthy People initiative has evolved over time starting with approximately 200 objectives and currently containing over 1400 objectives for Healthy People 2020. The current goals of HP 2020 focus on achieving health equity and eliminating disparities. This presentation will focus on the historical aspects of this initiative and the evolution of the oral health objectives. Also, discussion of strategies for emerging issues and the role of the social determinants of health will be addressed.
Panel Discussion: Race, Ethnicity and Culture Impact on Health and Oral Health
Derek Griffith, PhD; Amelie Ramirez, DrPH; Candice Chen, MD, MPH; Lois Cohen, PhD
Culture, race, and ethnicity intersect in the delivery of health care from both the patient and provider perspective. Our culture is influenced through both our social and physical environment and is directly connected to political determinants of health. Failing to account for these deeply rooted identities and values creates health inequity. Understanding and awareness of how our internal and external identities connect to health outcomes help us promote culturally responsive care and support equitable policies.