Sarah Chagnon: No financial relationships to disclose
Description: The American Dental Therapy Association (ADTA) is a national member-based organization with a mission to advocate for outstanding patient-centered oral health care in underserved communities, to amplify public awareness of the value of dental therapists to communities and the dental team and support high quality educational opportunities for community members to become dental therapists. The ADTA supports all dental therapy education pathways that expand access to oral health care, including both the IHS/CHAP and CODA pathways. Recently, the Indian Health Service (IHS) provided funding for dental therapy education programs and it is expanding the Community Health Aide Program (CHAP) certification on a federal level to broaden this pathway to becoming a dental therapist. The CODA dental therapy education model also received a recommendation for funding in a July 2022 HRSA report, “Supporting Dental Therapy through Title VII Training Programs: A Meaningful Strategy for Implementing Equitable Oral Health Care.” Currently, fourteen states have laws authorizing dental therapy with six more looking to authorize the education and practice of dental therapy providers to address the urgent unmet oral health needs of their communities. As an organization and Co-Chair of the National Partnership for Dental Therapy we will continue to work diligently to increase awareness and collaborate with other national organizations, tribal leaders, dental therapy advocates, educators, students and beyond to promote and advocate for dental therapy as a valuable pathway for improving access to oral health care for underserved communities.
