Oral Health in Communities and Neighborhoods (OHICAN) Pilot Project: The Burden of Poor Oral Health

Poor oral health afflicts many low-income and other vulnerable populations. Lack of access to oral health can lead to unnecessary tooth decay, periodontal disease, pain, and the advancement of oral cancer. The absence of preventive care often leads to unnecessary and expensive visits to hospital-based emergency departments to address the pain of dental disease but not the causal conditions. The consequences on inequitable access to dental care are significant for individuals, families and communities. The OHICAN pilot project looked to address the lack of equitable access to care by creating new points of access, training medical providers to perform oral exams and apply fluoride when indicated, thus increasing the oral health workforce, utilizing technology to bridge clinical practice, education, training and research, educating stakeholders to allow dental hygienists to provide preventive care under general supervision, and creating business models that will assist others who seek to create a dental home for those they serve. Social, political and economic forces all contribute to varying degrees in terms of equity in healthcare. The work of OHICAN was designed to create a blueprint for potential solutions to these issues in order to foster oral health equity. Changes to improve access to dental care can take place in a relatively short period of time when all who care and are impacted by this continued unmet oral health need work together

Community Health: Widen the Lens

Presented on March 14, 2019 at 12:30 p.m. in the Clough Lounge, Room 205.David Addiss, MD, MPH is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health. He is a senior scientist at the Task Force for Global Health and Adjunct Professor at the Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, where he teaches global health ethics. Current interests include global health ethics; the role of compassion in global health; mindfulness and global health; ethical reflection and formation for global health practitioners; moral distress and divided loyalties in global health; ethics of care in global health; and the ethics of mass drug administration for control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases.Hope Bussenius earned a doctor of nursing practice degree at Georgia Health Sciences University in 2012, a master's degree in nursing from Emory University in 1993, and a bachelor's degree in nursing from the Medical College of Georgia in 1990. In 2012, she started the Take 2 Heart: Pedia BP® Program, a smartphone app to simplify tracking blood pressure readings in pediatric patients.Michael Elliott is the associate director of Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development (CQGRD) and an associate professor, jointly appointed to the Schools of City and Regional Planning and Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a co-founder and has served as co-director of both the Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution and the Southeast Negotiation Network.Rihana Nesrudin is from the Oakhurst Medical Center.Runtime: 56:02 minutesThe second panel of the Spring 2019 Liam's Legacy will engage global perspectives; however, both panels will highlight the connectedness of local and global community health challenges and innovations. Featured panelists include David Addiss of the Task Force for Global Health, Hope Bussenius of Emory's Urban Health Initiative, and Rihana Nesrudin of Oakhurst Medical Center. Hence, the symposium also explores how professionals from different disciplines and sectors view the concept of "community health" through the specific lenses of the communities--whether here in Atlanta or abroad-- with which they work