Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
Promoting Equitable Access to Language Services in Oral Health - Oral health is essential to overall health and well-being, and health equity cannot be achieved without the elimination of oral health disparities. Many oral diseases are highly preventable with available treatment options, yet many Americans from certain racial and ethnic minority groups still experience poorer oral health than the general population and continue to live with poorer oral health as they grow older. Understanding the racial, ethnic, cultural, and language profiles of our communities facilitates a deeper understanding of disparate oral health status and outcomes and the structural and social factors that contribute to these inequities. The goal of this proposed project Promoting Equitable Access to Language Services in Oral Health is to establish Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (TUSDM) as a demonstration site to identify, implement, and evaluate innovative strategies to enhance language access as a means to meet the diverse oral healthcare needs of underserved populations. Boston, MA - the primary geographic area of focus for this demonstration project - is home to diverse racial, ethnic, and linguistic population groups. Recent community health needs assessment data highlights Boston’s diversity with 23% of residents identifying as Black, nearly 20% identifying as Latino, and nearly 10% identifying as Asian. Nearly 4 in 10 Boston residents (37.4%; 233,159 residents) speak a language other than English at home, the most prevalent language being Spanish. The need for increased linguistic capacity in healthcare arose as a common theme, particularly in non-English focus groups and key informants working in healthcare. Building on previous language access efforts, we have identified the following objectives as a means to achieve our project’s goal: 1) Increase the number of individuals with LEP who are aware of language assistance services and their rights to those services in the dental setting, 2) Increase oral health-re lated training opportunities for healthcare interpreters to effectively interpret within the dental setting, 3) Increase the number of qualified, dual-role interpreters among the dental workforce in Massachusetts, and 4) Increase evidence-informed, health communication strategies used during patient encounters involving dental team members and individuals with LEP. Following completion of a detailed environmental scan and development of a Disparity Impact Statement (which will inform our overall project strategy), we will be partnering with 4 Boston-based FQHCs and a local language assistance services company to execute a diverse array of activities both internal to TUSDM as well as externally with our community partners. Proposed activities include, but are not limited to: review and revision of organizational language access policies and procedures; establishing a Language Access Community Advisory Board; integrating oral health content into existing interpreter trainings as well as developing a new oral health course for interpreters; training dental providers on health literacy strategies to employ when working with interpreters; establishing dual-role interpreter job positions at TUSDM and partnering FQHCs and supporting training and certification fees for qualified, bilingual dental staff; and national dissemination of our evidence-informed oral health training materials and research findings through our national partner and others. All partners will be involved in our robust data collection and evaluation process. As our preliminary data have shown, there is a true need to address language access in oral healthcare. The hope of this project is to demonstrate how to balance the cultural and linguistic needs of our patients and communities with responsibilities of dental practice via the identification and implementation of evidence-informed, innovative strategies to ensure language is no longer a barrier to quality oral healthcare and overall health.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).