G-2309-19890

The Health Disparities Collaborative of Ohio d/b/a Ohio Federation for Health Equity and Social Justice (OFHESJ) is a nonprofit organization in Ohio made up of agencies, organizations, and individuals concerned about minority and multicultural health, health equity, social justice, and the elimination of health disparities for racially and ethnically diverse populations.

Last year, OFHESJ successfully recruited and contracted a Research Assistant as well as a Policy Education Director to draft and finalize a policy position paper for dissemination to advocates and other policy stakeholders. With the support of these roles, the Federation also engaged more than 100 kinship families to participate in the organization’s oral health story-banking project and surveys. Results of the surveys indicated that suburban kinship families lack access to oral health resources at significantly higher rates than their urban and rural counterparts. This finding suggests that access beyond dental clinics could benefit this population, therefore, OFHESJ will leverage these findings to influence legislators to consider updates to policies around oral health coverage and access, which would ensure that children can be seen by dental professionals at any level of insurance and in non-traditional care settings (i.e., school-based health centers).

The organization has expanded its partnerships to include Dayton Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Logan-Hocking School Districts, and Guardians Like Us, all organizations that are well connected to kinship-specific community and school programs, as well as national organizations like Community Catalyst, to engage community stakeholders for their perspectives on oral health access.

In this proposal, OFHESJ plans to demonstrate the multi-level benefits of school-based health centers (SBHCs) that include oral health care services and establish an oral health care coalition of kinship caregivers that will learn about and influence oral health care policy and its relevance to school-based care. In 2022, Governor DeWine of Ohio announced $25.9 million marked for the expansion of SBHCs and, of the existing 150+ sites, 47% provide dental services. Given this funding allocation and opportunity for change, this work will begin with a PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) analysis, done in collaboration with the Ohio State University School of Social Work, and data collection to compare oral health, well-being, satisfaction, and school performance outcomes between schools with SBHCs that have dental services and those that do not. Following the analysis, kinship caregiver groups from earlier project stages will be re-engaged to further the movement for SBHCs to include dental health services, beginning with advocacy within their respective school districts about the urgent need for increased access to care.

This new coalition of caregivers committed to oral health advocacy will work with the Ohio School-Based Health Alliance (OSBA) and Ohio school districts to identify up to three schools that currently have SBHCs that lack oral health services to serve as pilot sites for the implementation of school-based dental services. Coalition members, supported by OFHESJ professional staff, will lead the outreach to district officials regarding the need and opportunity for increased access to care. The results of this outreach will be captured, published, and shared as a model for potential adaptation beyond Ohio and, at the end of the proposed project period, OFHESJ will have produced a report and a paper that explains the results of the PEST analysis to demonstrate the impact(s) of school-based dental services. Additionally, the coalition of kinship caregivers will work to identify and articulate between 3-5 oral health care policy/system change recommendations for legislators and/or state policymakers to consider. Direct engagement with policymakers for education opportunities around oral health will be facilitated by Oral Health Ohio.

Of the requested funds, the majority will be used to support the salaries of four project roles ($92,000) who will carry out most project activities, including convening relevant stakeholders and leading publication design. The remaining funds will be used to support expenses related to travel, subgrants to local school districts and the Ohio Grandparent Kinship Coalition, along with printing, design, and website development expenses. If funded, this grant would be equivalent to 42% of the organization’s overall budget, a slight decrease from 2022. OFHESJ will update its advocacy toolkit and share this resource with CareQuest Institute and OPEN for broad access and use.