Dr. Belinda Borrelli
Dr. Michelle Henshaw
Dr. Raul Garcia
Dr. Brenda Heaton
Three faculty members at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) were recently awarded two grants from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for two projects aimed at eliminating inequities in access to care and improving the oral health of children.
The GSDM Principal Investigators of the two projects are Professor in theDepartment of Health Policy & Health Services Research and Director of Behavioral Science Research, Dr. Belinda Borrelli; Professor in the Department of Health Policy & Health Services Research and Associate Dean for Global & Population Health, Dr. Michelle Henshaw; and Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy & Health Services Research and Director of the Northeast Center for Research to Evaluate and Eliminate Dental Disparities (CREEDD), Dr. Raul Garcia.
Dr. Borrelli and Dr. Henshaw’s project is titled: “Integrating Interactive Parent Text Messaging and Oral Health Guidelines into Pediatric Community Health Centers to Reduce Early Childhood Caries.”
Dr. Garcia’s project is titled: “Using Social Networks to Improve Oral Health.” The project’s lead co-investigator is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy & Health Services Research Dr. Brenda Heaton.
The projects were two of just nine projects funded by the NIDCR that are all part of a new consortium with more than $7 million in first year funding that has been established with the goal of reducing disparities in access to, and quality of, oral and dental care in minority and low income children. In March 2015, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that Hispanic/Latino children and black children are about twice as likely as white children to have untreated tooth decay in primary teeth.
“By establishing this research consortium, NIDCR seeks to lead national efforts in reducing childhood oral health disparities,” said NIDCR Director Martha J. Somerman in a press release. “Among the projects awarded are those that test innovative health promotion and disease prevention strategies and evaluate and refine existing programs and policies.”
Dr. Borrelli and Dr. Henshaw’s project, “Integrating Interactive Parent Text Messaging and Oral Health Guidelines into Pediatric Community Health Centers to Reduce Early Childhood Caries,” is a randomized clinical trial that will measure the effects of a parent-targeted text message intervention on the oral health of children less than six years old visiting Community Health Centers (CHC) for pediatric wellness visits.
The abstract states: “The benefits of text message interventions include the use of anywhere/anytime, low cost, scalability to large populations, ability to tailor message content and intensity, and provision of strategies in real time.”
If the project is successful, Dr. Borrelli and Dr. Henshaw believe the research has strong potential to be an evidence based program that could easily be adopted at low cost and with low provider burden in the 1,128 CHCs in the United States that treat almost 4.5 million high risk children less than six years old.
Dr. Garcia’s project, “Using Social Networks to Improve Oral Health,” seeks to fight the oral health disparities evident in one to five-year-old children who reside in public housing developments (PHD). The project will use Network Science methods, similar to those used in earlier work by CREEDD, to design and implement a network intervention, guided by diffusion of innovations theory.
Dr. Garcia and Dr. Heaton will work together to evaluate their central hypothesis that “controlled dissemination of information targeting changes in health behaviors through social networks will accelerate the uptake of knowledge, support the adoption of positive behavior change, and improve oral health status of caregivers and their young children.”
Similar approaches based in Network Science have been shown to increase sustainability of behavior change over and above that of individualized efforts. However, this is the first application of network science to address oral health problems.
Dean Jeffrey W. Hutter praised the GSDM doctors for their accomplishments.
“I am pleased to hear of the recent National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research grants awarded to Dr. Borrelli, Dr. Henshaw, and Dr. Garcia for their projects that will attempt to lessen inequities in access to care and improve the oral health of minority children,” said Dean Jeffrey W. Hutter. “Both of these innovative projects are wonderful contributions to Global and Population Health.”