Press Release

California Dental Schools Awarded Funds to Help Improve
Access to Oral Health Care for Underserved Residents

New York, July 10, 2003 – The California Endowment has awarded four-year grants of up to $1.3 million to four California dental schools to help improve access to regular oral health care for many low-income, rural and minority Californians. The dental schools receiving the funding are Loma Linda University, University of California at Los Angeles, University of the Pacific and the University of Southern California.

This effort by The California Endowment is part of a larger $19 million program sponsored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, entitled, “Pipeline, Profession, and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education.” The Pipeline program started in 2002 and now supports 11 dental schools from around the country, including the University of California at San Francisco. Both The California Endowment and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s programs are managed by the Center for Community Health Partnerships (CCHP) at Columbia University and are under the direction of Allan Formicola, D.D.S., M.S. at Columbia and Howard Bailit, D.M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Connecticut Health Center and Hartford Hospital. Kim D’Abreu Herbert, M.P.H., also at Columbia, serves as the program’s deputy director.

“The safety net to obtain regular oral health care is very limited,” said Dr. Formicola. “Through the Pipeline program, dental schools around the country are creating innovative ways to address the needs of the underserved.”

Funding from The California Endowment will assist the dental schools in recruiting more underrepresented minority students into dentistry; training senior dental students and residents to provide care in community-based clinics and practices caring for underserved populations; preparing dental students for their community experiences by integrating cultural competency and related courses into dental schools’ curricula; advancing state and national oral health policies to reduce disparities in access to care issues; and providing financial assistance to underrepresented minority and low-income predoctoral dental students and postgraduate dental students.

“The diversity of our health work force is critical in addressing the racial and ethnic disparities that persist among rural areas and communities of color. By creating learning and training opportunities for underrepresented minority dentists, we hope to increase the diversity and cultural competence of the health work force to foster better patient and provider relationships and to improve the overall health of these communities,” said Robert K. Ross. M.D., president and CEO of The California Endowment.

In California, there are multiple barriers that block residents from receiving regular oral health care. The basic problems are that disadvantaged populations do not have the resources to purchase dental services, many low-income patients are not covered by public insurance plans (DentiCal), most dentists only see a few DentiCal patients because of low reimbursement fees, and publicly owned clinics for the underserved are able to serve relatively few patients.

A related issue is the lack of underrepresented minority dentists and dental students in California. Although 40 percent of the state’s citizens are Hispanic, African American, and American Indian, only five percent of dental students and eight percent of dentists are from these communities. Consequently, minority patients have difficulty finding dentists who are of similar background culturally and linguistically.

“Our partnership with The California Endowment to increase diversity in the dental workforce and expand opportunities for serving vulnerable populations is both practical and strategic for both foundations,” added Judith S. Stavisky, MPH, M.Ed., senior program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dr. Bailit said, “There are no easy answers to the problems of access, and I congratulate The California Endowment and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for joining forces and making a major financial commitment to this issue. The dental schools cannot solve this problem, but they can make a major contribution.”

The Center for Community Health Partnerships is a resource center of Columbia University that works to reduce health care disparities by building local programs and applying them nationally.

The California Endowment was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. For more information visit its web site at www.calendow.org.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, NJ, is the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It concentrates grant making in four goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at a reasonable cost; to improve care and support for people with chronic health conditions; to promote healthy communities and lifestyles; and to reduce the personal, social, and economic harm caused by substance abuse - tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.

###