Emerging role of community health workers in oral health promotion

Community health workers (CHWs) play key roles in our health care and public health systems as specialists in improving access to health care, education, direct services, and advocacy for vulnerable populations. It is critical for oral health specialists to integrate CHWs in oral health education because of CHWs' unique connection to hard to reach communities as well as CHWs' expertise with health outreach, health promotion, and health care system navigation. In 2010, the Outreach Worker Training Institute (OWTI) of Central MA AHEC, in partnership with the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers (MACHW), piloted a statewide oral health training series for CHWs funded by the DentaQuest Foundation. The three hour training, offered in eight locations across the state, supported Massachusetts CHWs' integration of oral health promotion into their work. The training helped CHWs to identify barriers to optimal oral health, ways to navigate the local oral health system, strategies to support patients' behavior modification, and methods to promote patients' active involvement with preventative oral health care. This session will discuss the implementation of the training, lessons learned from training CHWs, and the benefits of advancing CHWs' role in promoting oral health for vulnerable populations.