G-2106-17067

The National Dental Association (NDA) is a membership-based organization that promotes oral health equity among people of color by using the collective power of its members, advocating for the needs of and mentoring dental students of color, and raising the profile of the profession in the community. We have supported the organization through grants for the past several years for similar programs and event sponsorships.

This investment, through the Executive Director’s Fund, is to support three of the NDA’s 2021 programs: the NDA Health Now program, the NDA Student Inter-Professional Program, and the Prenatal and Perinatal program. The HealthNow program is a community-based program that includes virtual oral health education sessions and humanitarian efforts to serve underserved populations. The project aims to expand for integrating medicine and dentistry through oral health education for medical residents. The Student Program supports multiple disciplinary student leaders to strengthen ethnic and racially diverse student leader groups. The Prenatal and Perinatal program educates patients on the importance of oral health, health literacy, and increases access for targeted health consumers. It also provides advanced training and oral health education for medical residents in OBGYN, Pediatrics, and public health. The budget of $25,000 would be split across the three programs and would support costs including virtual education sessions and publishing.