G-1908-15219

The purpose of this grant is to support Texas Impact in leading a diverse cohort of faith-based teams, from around the state, in a learning collaborative process focused on training and equipping them to understand, examine, and diagnose the social determinants of oral health (SDOH) that exist in their relative communities. Building on the work done last year to bring an oral health policy agenda and the Texas faith community together, this work will refine the tools and strategies used to engage the faith community in oral health advocacy. Specifically, Texas Impact will bring recruit and bring together interfaith teams across Texas, will design a SDOH curriculum and will support the teams in implementing a community analysis. The result of the work will be an increased faith community capacity, a community-driven policy agenda, and, through the use of traditional and online media, a narrative about each teams learning. Through this work, a model will be developed that will have the potential to be spread across the state and country. This work most aligns with the OH2020 Goal of shifting the public perception of the value of oral health as a part of overall health.