SUPPORTING A CULTURE OF HEALTH

Supporting

A CULTURE OF HEALTH

various health concerns, including tobacco use and possible dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, in Casey County.

The team focused their efforts on third-grade students at Walnut Hill Elementary in Casey County, as the school has a history of supporting youth health programs and is located in Appalachia, an area with many health challenges.

Through the “Coordinating Activities to Support Empowerment of Youth (CASEY) Health” project, an interdisciplinary team of five University of Kentucky faculty worked to address the lack of holistic health education for elementary-aged children in Casey County, Kentucky. As part of their three-year effort, the team worked with community stakeholders to design and evaluate a sustainable health education curriculum to build and support a culture of health in the local community.

In the fall of 2019, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) selected a UK team to participate in their three-year Clinical Scholars Program. The RWJF Clinical Scholars Program is a national leadership offering for experienced healthcare providers that aims to address “wicked” or complex health problems in communities. Program participants, or Fellows, receive funding for projects and additional leadership development training to help further develop the unique skills needed to lead communities toward a culture of health. UK’s team received $525,000 to support their work to address “Almost all the programs that work on improving health outcomes start at the middle school or high school level, and we believe it’s too late,” noted RWJF team member Dr. Charles Carlson. “We want to empower children with information,

activities, and encouragement to take steps to thrive as individuals by being healthier.”

For the first half of the team’s award period, the group spent time listening to the community—collecting input from school cafeteria personnel, curriculum content leaders, teachers, the principal’s office, and others—and developing partnerships with key community groups. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, building solid connections with local community members was critical in supporting progress with program efforts.

RWJF team member Dr. Angela Grubbs shares, “We faced some challenges along the way. Being outsiders in the community, we had to meet the members, identify key stakeholders, establish relationships, develop trust, and build rapport with the residents.”

“Because of these relationships, we’ve been able to develop outcomes from our project that have been very consistent with what the school wanted, what they needed, and things that we feel can be generalizable beyond the work that we’ve done with this particular school,” said RWJF team member Dr. Audrey Darville.

The team found that while teachers placed a high value on providing health information to students, they needed help to fit a coordinated approach into an already packed schedule of information and activities planned for students.

“We first envisioned that we would create a curriculum. Through feedback and focus groups, teachers shared that they barely get done with everything in their days currently. So, we asked about five minutes or two minutes,” said RWJF team member Dr. Craig Miller. “We worked with what they wanted as opposed to trying to push an idea that the team thought was a better idea… that’s not the way to work with communities.”

Community stakeholder input and insight helped fuel the team’s efforts to create a set of Brief, Regular, Interactive, Energetic, and Fun (B.R.I.E.F.) Health Lessons. A collection of 37 lesson cards were created UK RWJF CLINICAL SCHOLAR TEAM • Charles Carlson, professor, UK

Department of Psychology, College of

Arts and Sciences.

• Audrey Darville, associate professor,

UK College of Nursing;

• Craig Miller, professor and chief,

Division of Oral Diagnosis, Oral

Medicine and Oral and Maxillofacial

Radiology, College of Dentistry;

• Angela Grubbs, assistant professor, UK

College of Nursing;

• Julie Plasencia, assistant professor, UK

Department of Dietetics and Human

Nutrition, College of Agriculture, Food and Environment

HEAR THE TEAM’S BIG IDEA TALK AT youtube.com/watch?v=PldlhMZ8Xcg

to support quick health-related activities in classrooms. Lessons focus on nutrition, oral health, general health, mental health, physical activity, injury/illness prevention, and tobacco prevention. Each card includes a short health message paired with a 5-minute activity.

Building on the messages shared via the B.R.I.E.F. Health Lessons, the team worked with the Casey County Extension Office Agent for 4-H Youth Development, Meagan Klee, and the 4-H Extension Council to establish a health ambassador program and scholarship endowment. Through this program, high school students provide peer mentor health education to third-grade students and can apply for a college scholarship in future years. In addition, working with 4-H representatives, the team established operating procedures, an application process, and training for high school participants.

Gabriel Hatfield of Casey County High School was selected as the first $1,000 Health Ambassador Scholarship recipient. Hatfield is attending Berea College and is interested in working toward earning a nurse practitioner degree.

Hatfield shared, “Being a health ambassador gave me the

opportunity to educate third-grade youth about healthy

habits in their everyday life. It was such an enriching experience, and I loved seeing their warm smiles and laughs as I walked in each month. The children and I got to know each other relatively quickly, and I knew this program was going to be a fun experience for both the students and me.”

Additional steps to support the growth and suitability of the team’s efforts include the creation of a toolkit that other communities can follow to launch similar efforts, as well as conversations with groups to help make printed versions of B.R.I.E.F. Health Lessons available.

Speaking on taking part in the RWJF Clinical Scholars Program, Dr. Julie Plasencia said, “It’s a transformative experience… It’s been a great professional development and networking opportunity. We’ve been able to share these ideas with other RWJF teams across the country and get their feedback.”

“We’re all clinicians, and we’re all clinical scholars. A requirement of this program is you had to be a clinician, but you couldn’t be a community health worker…that’s a point of the program, to teach clinicians how to go to communities and do these things,” Miller added.

A DAY OF GIVING

Malueg with Dean Okeson

Each year, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of UK are invited to support the University of Kentucky, their respective college or their favorite fund during #OneDayForUK. The College of Dentistry uses this opportunity to seek donations for the College of Dentistry Scholarship, although a donor may direct their gift to another fund. In 2022, 3,407 donors gave $2,391,569 to the University of Kentucky on this special day. The College of Dentistry raised $12,880 from the support of 32 donors. While the majority of the donations went to the College of Dentistry Scholarship, gifts were also directed to the Joshua T. Sullivan Scholarship, Endodontic Gift Fund, Dr. Nero and Biggerstaff Diversity Scholarship, Dan Seaver Scholarship, Dr. Wes Coffman Health-Centered Dentistry Award, and the Alumni Association Endowment.

Dr. Leslie Malueg, of Greensboro, North Carolina, and 1989 DMD graduate, was one of those donors and shared the following comment: “It was my pleasure and an honor to be able to donate to the UKCD on OneDayforUK. Thank you to the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry for providing me the education that allowed a rewarding career in dentistry!”

DENTAL MATERIALS RESEARCH SUPPORT

Through an Educational Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the United States Air Force through Keesler Medical Center, the college has gained valuable research equipment to assist in the renewal of UKCD’s dental materials research program. Better understanding of dental materials is essential for the general dentist as studying the properties of new materials helps dentists increase the quality, value, and the longevity of dental restorations in their patients. The combined equipment donation is valued at $629,421.98 and consists of instruments for the analysis of visible light curing units, material strength testing, material surface changes, sophisticated thermal analysis equipment, as well as a microtomographic X-ray unit (microCT). Current projects include using thermal analysis to observe the dimensional changes in materials as they are subjected to different intraoral temperatures, changes in endodontic files after function, and the change in provisional crown material mechanical properties over storage. The study of these properties provides essential knowledge to improve the quality of current and future materials.

The microCT unit functions essentially like a medical CAT scan but is limited to evaluate smaller materials with high detail. The unit allows the non-destructive analysis of materials and is currently used to evaluate the amount of porosity in different dental restorative materials, the endodontic apical anatomy of teeth, and is planned to assist medical researchers assessing the virulence of different strains of strep mutans, the main bacteria that causes caries, and if the presence of yeast may amplify strep mutan’s actions.

Another donated item of equipment is a laser scanning microscope that allows the high detail analysis of material surface changes and wear. Present projects include the effect of newer charcoal-containing toothpastes on the wear of both dental restorations and enamel, changes of toothbrush tufts with use, and the dimensional surfaces changes of different dental restorative materials.

Dean Okeson has identified the creation of a solid research program at UKCD, focused on practical research to benefit the general dentist, as one of his priorities. The dental biomaterials research section is slowly building its capability to support that vision. The donation of this equipment has enhanced that growth of UKCD’s research capabilities. As an indicator of that growth, the dental biomaterials research section, since 2018, has had 20 peer-reviewed dental scientific publications, as well as two manuscripts that have been accepted and are in the process of being published.

DELTA DENTAL CONTINUES TO SUPPORT COLLEGE EFFORTS

Throughout Kentucky, there remain segments of the population with no or limited access to oral health care. A new collaboration between Delta Dental of Kentucky and UK College of Dentistry will expand access to underserved populations through six free, educational, prevention, and treatment efforts.

“The College of Dentistry is very excited to participate with Delta Dental of Kentucky on this mobile dentistry project. We feel this will allow us to expand our reach in providing oral care to Kentucky’s most vulnerable citizens–those who otherwise would not receive dental care,” shared Dr. Pam Sparks Stein, former Division Chief for Dental Public Health.

To support this effort, Delta Dental of Kentucky will provide a mobile dental van, CDL driver, dental equipment, and other supplies. The Delta Dental of Kentucky Foundation will also fund a UKCD faculty member who is a registered dentist, an outreach coordinator, and up to four dental students to carry out the planned outreach activities. The mobile van will offer screenings, basic dental treatments, and educational oral health instruction at each outreach site at no cost to the local community.

The first event was held at the Kentucky Horse Park. Eleven individuals were seen by third- and fourth-year students with Drs. Emily Winfrey and Ronald Singer overseeing their work. Patient participants had a variety of needs addressed via this new collaboration.