DOC Health Disparities Program
Overview
The Dental, Oral, Craniofacial (DOC) Health Disparities Program supports scientifically rigorous, community-engaged research that helps generate scalable, evidence-based strategies to address DOC health disparities in communities to achieve health for all. Despite remarkable improvements in the oral health of Americans, chronic DOC diseases and conditions remain among the most common health problems across the lifespan. The conditions can be particularly prevalent and severe for individuals and communities that face economic or other barriers to health care. Given the complexity of DOC health disparities, inter-disciplinary research teams must collaborate with affected communities/populations for research conceptualization, planning, implementation, and dissemination. Populations/communities disproportionately affected by the burden of dental caries, periodontal disease, and oral and oropharyngeal cancers are of particular concern. Relevant research topics include, but are not limited to:
- System science research to understand the influence of multi-level factors driving oral health disparities across generations and predict successful population-based intervention models
- Health service research to examine the impact of local, state, and/or federal health policies on oral health and economic outcomes
- Community-focused clinical research to study feasibility, acceptability, and clinical as well as community outcomes of oral health care delivery in non-health care settings such as school, long-term care facilities, or the workplace by non-dental providers
- Community-Based Participatory Research to develop, adapt, and test strategies to integrate oral health into chronic disease prevention and/or support services provided by community organizations through meaningful multi-sector partnerships
- Dissemination and implementation research to evaluate novel intervention strategies designed to increase the uptake of evidence-based oral health prevention in communities experiencing oral health disparities
- Small business research to advance innovations in health information technologies or oral health care coordination, collaboration, and/or communication tools that can be readily incorporated into health care delivery settings and/or systems
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