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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Charla J. Lautar, RDH, PhD¹, Elaine T. Jurkowski, MSW, PhD², and Tsukasa Okino, MSW². (1) School of Allied Health, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, M/C 6615, Carbondale, IL 62901, 618-453-7211, cjlautar@siu.edu, (2) School of Social Work, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, M/C 4329 , 875 S. Normal Ave., Carbondale, IL 62901-4329

Public health currently is the thread interwoven throughout the various roles of the dental hygienist. Advocacy and multidisciplinary collaboration will become paramount in day to day activities of dental hygiene practice. Consequently, the purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the perception of advocacy and multidisciplinary collaboration, as they progress through their dental hygiene curricula. This was done in order to develop multidisciplinary collaborative community outreach activities as a component of the workforce training process. A convenience sample of dental hygiene and social work students (n=156) was used. The survey instrument consisted of a series of Likert scale items and open-ended questions related to definitions of various health professionals. A qualitative and quantitative analysis was conducted to identify the roles which each of the health providers undertook, from students' perspective. The analysis also revealed that there were differences in perceptions between the levels of students. These arose as a result of their exposure to these roles in the curriculum. As more community outreach activities are integrated into the educational process of students, both dental hygienists and other disciplines within the multidisciplinary advocacy arena are impacted. It will be necessary for all partners to have an understanding of the functions of each other and how their roles can contribute to advocacy efforts, and utilize this information in the development and delivery of training curricula. A discussion of strategies for infusing public health advocacy within the curricula will be discussed as a result of this study.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will

1. Become knowledgeable about how dental hygienists can advocate for health promotion and public health within a multidisciplinary settings.
• Understand how perceptions of students related to advocacy and dental hygiene roles evolve as they move through their professional training.
• Become aware of at least two strategies which can improve multidisciplinary collaboration.

Keywords: Workforce, Oral Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered