The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation Awards Grant To The American Dental Education Association To Increase The Diversity Of The Dental Workforce

Main Category: Dentistry
Also Included In: Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 18 Oct 2007 - 2:00 PDT

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The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation has awarded a grant of $550,457 to the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) to increase the diversity of the dental workforce in the United States. ADEA will serve as the host organization and coordinating committee of the program entitled Moving Forward: Bridging the Gap. The grant will fund the planning process to implement a flexible seven-year dental curriculum, modeled after one currently used in medicine, to prepare a new cadre of underrepresented minority and low-income (URM/LI) students for the practice of dentistry.

"We are so grateful for the generous support of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. Only 5% of practicing dentists are African-American, and the percentage remains sadly similar for Hispanic dentists and much smaller for American Indians and Alaskan Natives. Given the demographic changes in the United States, it is a priority of ADEA to increase the enrollment of URM students to rectify this situation," said ADEA President James Q. Swift, D.D.S.

The program aims to move toward the implementation of a seven-year curriculum that will significantly increase the number of URM students that receive a dental education and then enter the workforce as dental school graduates. The grant grew out of a feasibility study "Bridging the Gap: Partnerships Between Dental Schools and Colleges to Produce a Workforce to Fully Serve America's Diverse Communities" (2006) that was sponsored by Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved (a national program supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation). Henrie Treadwell, Ph.D., Director of Community Voices and Associate Director of Development at the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine, was involved in charging the study and served on the study committee. Jeanne Sinkford, D.D.S., Ph.D., ADEA Associate Executive Director and Director of the ADEA Center for Equity and Diversity, also served on the study committee.

"This is an important initiative to further the field's need to increase diversity in the profession. It will allow us to get to a very talented pool of URM students that we have been missing in the past. It's also a great example of collaboration between private and public institutions and dental schools," said Allan J. Formicola, D.D.S., M.S., Professor of Dentistry and former Dean of Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and Study Coordinator of the 2006 "Bridging the Gap" report. Dr. Formicola will act as a consultant to the Moving Forward: Bridging the Gap program.

The co-directors of the grant are Douglass L. Jackson, D.M.D., M.S., Ph.D., and Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dr. Jackson is Associate Dean for Educational Partnerships and Diversity at the University of Washington School of Dentistry, and Dr. Tedesco is Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at Emory University and Professor in the Rollins School of Public Health. Both served on the Community Voices "Bridging the Gap" study committee.

"Acting on the recommendations in the Community Voices report 'Bridging the Gap' is a demonstration of dental education's commitment to exploring the 'best practices' capable of making significant progress in our goal of eliminating oral health disparities," said Dr. Jackson.

The study described how the program model used by the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education could be adapted for dentistry. Students in the Sophie Davis School are selected from high school into a seven-year cooperative program between the City University of New York and six medical schools in the region. The findings indicated that this model will work best in regions that recognize there is a problem with access to care, where there are existing URM pipeline programs, and where willing partnerships exist or can be forged between minority serving colleges or universities and dental and medical schools.

"We need to supplement our traditional programs with innovative approaches to increase the numbers of dentists from underrepresented groups. The Sophie Davis model has a track record of great success, and if applied to dentistry, it can only redound to the profession's commitment to the public good," said Dr. Tedesco.

Three regions will participate in the 18-month planning grant: New York City, New Mexico, and Georgia. The Moving Forward: Bridging the Gap program will work with leadership from Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, the University of New Mexico, and the Medical College of Georgia School of Dentistry in collaboration with the Atlanta University Center.

Ongoing efforts by ADEA to recruit URM students into the dental profession include Access to Dental Careers, a program designed to increase the number of minority students and faculty members in U.S. dental schools, and the Minority Faculty Development program, an initiative to increase the number of URMs in academic dentistry. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded both projects. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funds ADEA's Summer Medical Dental Education Program, a free (full tuition, housing, and meals) six-week summer medical and dental school preparatory program and the ExploreHealthCareers.org (EHC) website. EHC is a free, interactive health careers website designed to explain the array of health professions and provide easy access to students seeking information about health careers. For more information about ADEA, visit http://www.adea.org.

About the American Dental Education Association

The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) is the leading national organization for dental education. Its members include all U.S. and Canadian dental schools and many allied and postdoctoral dental education programs, corporations, faculty, and students. The mission of ADEA is to lead individuals and institutions of the dental education community to address contemporary issues influencing education, research, and the delivery of oral health care for the health of the public. ADEA's activities encompass a wide range of research, advocacy, faculty development, meetings, and communications like the esteemed Journal of Dental Education, as well as the dental school admissions services AADSAS and PASS.

About The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation

The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation is a private foundation dedicated to improving the health and health care of individuals and the public. It seeks to fund projects that improve the medical and health professional education in the context of the changing health care system; increase diversity among health care professionals; demonstrate or encourage ways to increase teamwork between and among health care professionals; and create educational strategies to increase care for underserved populations.

American Dental Education Association

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