Specifications include, but are not limited to: The first three objectives in this project are designed to improve access to oral health care and services for Delawareans with disabilities in Dental HPSAs—Kent County, Sussex County, and the Southbridge section of Wilmington in New Castle County, which cover most of Delaware—through the cultivation and improvement of cultural competence of disability among the oral health workforce in Delaware. The long-term goal of the project is to improve health equity for people with disabilities in the Dental HPSAs by reducing health disparities in access to quality oral health care and services. The methodology is aligned with the recommendation in the two reports by the Institute of Medicine (2011) that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) should improve Americans’ oral health by increasing cultural competence of oral health workforce. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recognized the cultural competence training as a critical step in enhancing health outcomes (IOM, 2011), pointing out that dental students do not have appropriate cultural competence and clinical experience in caring for vulnerable and underserved populations which affects dentists’ practice patterns (IOM & NRC, 2011).
