Press Release
February 25, 2003 |
Contact: Liz Cook |
Dr. Canise Bean to Lead the OHIO Project
$1.5 million grant will launch new dental outreach initiatives
COLUMBUS – The Ohio State University College of Dentistry has been awarded a $1.5 million grant to help improve access to dental care to disadvantaged adults and children in Ohio. Oral Health Improvement through Outreach (OHIO) is the result of a state analysis in 1998 that identified access to dental care as the No. 1 unmet health-care need in Ohio.
The OHIO Project was awarded a five-year grant in September 2002 through The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The college, collaborating with medical professionals, government and education officials, and community advocates, was one of 10 in the country awarded with a grant to promote community-based dental education.
Dr. Canise Bean, assistant professor in the College of Dentistry and the project director, said the initiative has two primary goals.
“Our first priority is to develop a service-learning program through which our student providers will help improve access to oral care for members of our communities both under- and uninsured,” Bean said. “Secondly, we want to increase the recruitment and retention of students and faculty of varied ethnic backgrounds in the college.”
Dental students currently perform approximately 20 days of patient care at area facilities including the Columbus Children’s Hospital and the Ohio State Nisonger Center for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. They also participate in a community-based Appalachian dental treatment program for the elderly.
Bean said once the grant is fully developed, outreach efforts will significantly increase and extend beyond Franklin County. Dental hygiene students and graduate program residents will be included.
“Ultimately, in the final year of the grant, we will have our students providing dental services for up to 60 days at community sites statewide,” Bean said. “The partnerships the college is building among community organizations, hospitals and schools have already enabled us to identify potential outreach sites in Cincinnati, Zanesville and Coshocton, Ohio.”
She added that teaching diversity and building a diverse unit of faculty and student practitioners are essential.
“Dean Jan Kronmiller is extremely supportive and recognizes that the face of those seeking healthcare in today’s world has really changed,” Bean said.
“We know that we will have to incorporate cultural competency training inside the walls of the college because of the vast disparities that exist among people of varying ethnicities,” she said. “Ideally we want our first-year students to be immediately exposed to this element of care and for all of our students to feel confident and welcomed regardless of their environment”
Bean said community service is paramount to the college and the success of the OHIO project.
“Along with providing dental care, we want to instill in our students an ethic of community service and to impress upon them that there is a socially-responsible element that goes along with being a dental professional,” Bean said. “If we are successful, their service-learning experiences through the OHIO Project will become lasting solutions to the global problem of dental care access.”
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