NEWS

School of Dentistry awarded $1.35-million grant to combat North Carolina’s dentist shortage

By LANITA WITHERS
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- A new initiative at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Dentistry will work toward alleviating North Carolina’s dentist shortage.

The School of Dentistry was awarded a five-year, $1.35-million grant as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s "Pipeline, Profession & Practice: Community-Based Dental Education" initiative. UNC was one of 10 dental schools nationwide chosen to be a part of this effort.

The UNC project seeks to make changes in clinical education at community sites in underserved settings, in the school’s curriculum in social science and in minority and disadvantaged student recruitment, said Dr. Ronald P. Strauss, principal investigator, and Dental Friends distinguished professor and chair of the department of dental ecology.

The grant will help the School of Dentistry as it plans to increase its enrollment size. UNC’s School of Dentistry, the only such school in the state, aims to expand its class size by between 25 percent and 30 percent in the next several years, an expected jump from 75 to almost 100 students per class. Over the five years of the project, the School of Dentistry also plans to increase community-based clinical education for fourth-year students to 60 days.

"North Carolina has a shortage of practicing dentists, and it’s clear that in some areas of our state, people have to struggle to find even the most basic dental care," Strauss said. "This grant will enable our School of Dentistry to be an even more powerful force for change in battling these disparities."

North Carolina ranks 47^th in the United States in the supply of dentists to serve its population, according to a 1999 N.C. Institute of Medicine report. There are 38 dentists per 100,000 people in the state compared to the national ratio of 60 dentists for every 100,000 people.

The state’s 3,037 practicing dentists are primarily located in urban communities, although access to dentists in low-income parts of urban communities can be difficult. Of the state’s 100 counties, 79 qualify as nationally recognized dental health professional shortage areas, according to the institute report. Four counties have no practicing dentists, and another 36 counties have no dentist currently offering services to Medicaid recipients.

Strauss said the school seeks to promote partnerships with existing facilities that will provide both care and education for patients.

The project involves collaboration between the School of Dentistry and community partners including: the N.C. Area Health Education Program (headquartered at UNC-Chapel Hill), the School of Medicine’s Medical Education Development Program, the N.C. Oral Health Section, Guilford County Health Department, Wake Medical Center, Tri-County Community Health Center (Newton Grove), Orange County Health Department, FirstHealth Dental Care Centers (Southern Pines, Troy and Raeford), Wake County Human Services and the Old North State Dental Society.

In addition to Strauss, the other UNC project leaders are Dr. Janet Southerland, co-principal investigator, assistant professor of dental ecology and director of hospital dentistry; and Dr. Eugene S. Sandler, clinical associate professor of dental ecology and director of the UNC Dentistry in Service to Communities Program.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. The foundation’s "Pipeline" project is based in Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery in New York City.

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(Withers is a senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication from Reidsville, N.C.)

Note: Contact Strauss at (919) 966-2788 or ron_strauss@unc.edu

News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415