Grants to States to Support Oral Health Workforce Activities - Jefferson County, Oklahoma, is a federally designated rural Dental Health Professional Shortage Area with insufficient local dentists to meet resident demand. The Jefferson County MobileSmiles Rural Oral Health Workforce Initiative will establish a recurring mobile dental clinic in Jefferson County while training University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry (OUCOD) students in rural, community-based care — building both immediate access to care and a long-term rural dental workforce pipeline. The project will serve low-income residents, Medicaid beneficiaries, uninsured and underinsured individuals, children, older adults, individuals with disabilities, and other medically vulnerable residents of Jefferson County who currently lack a consistent dental home. Without local access to affordable preventive and restorative care, many residents delay treatment until conditions become urgent, increasing both treatment complexity and preventable complications. Using the Oklahoma Dental Foundation's (ODF) MobileSmiles unit, the project will provide recurring clinical services such as examinations, preventive care, restorations, extractions, and referral coordination, on a predictable operating schedule of approximately 185–200 days per year, replacing the intermittent outreach model previously used in the county. Approximately 40 fourth-year OUCOD dental students annually will complete supervised two-week clinical rotations at the mobile clinic, gaining direct experience in rural practice, patient care, and community-based service delivery under OUCOD-approved preceptor dentists. Project goals are to: (1) establish a sustained, accessible local source of dental care for underserved Jefferson County residents; (2) increase the number of residents receiving preventive and restorative dental services annually; (3) strengthen the rural oral health workforce pipeline by training dental students in rural practice settings and tracking their post-graduation practice locations; and (4) build a service-delivery model with the operational and financial sustainability to continue beyond the grant period. Measurable objectives include training approximately 40 dental students annually (160 over the project's five-year period) in rural clinical rotations, with tracking of graduate practice locations to assess rural workforce impact. The project will be implemented by OUCOD in partnership with the Oklahoma Dental Foundation, the Oklahoma State Department of Health Dental Health Service, and the Jefferson County Health Department, from September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2031.
