Breaking Barriers for Better Smiles: Introducing the Mississippi Population Oral Health Collaborative at the School of Dentistry

Through the inception of the Mississippi Population Oral Health Collaborative (MPOHC), the University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Dentistry (UMMC SOD) has launched a series of initiatives to enhance oral health throughout the state. The MPOHC provides care and education to Mississippi residents through research, informative webinars and dental outreach.

“We are really focusing on dental equity,” said Elizabeth Carr, D.H.A., M.D.H., RDH, Director of MPOHC and Chair of the UMMC SOD Department of Dental Hygiene. “We want for anyone anywhere in Mississippi to be able to have dental health.”

In partnership with the UMMC Center for Telehealth and part of a Health Resources and Services Administration grant, a pediatric dentistry-focused Project ECHO series began in December 2021. Originating from the University of New Mexico two decades ago, ECHO is a learning framework inspired by the way clinicians learn from medical rounds during their residencies. Participants engage with peers in a virtual community, where they share research and anonymized cases, benefiting from recommendations and discussions with other specialists. The MPOHC focused on pediatric oral health for a year and has now shifted its focus to general dentistry, including adult-oriented topics such as HPV-related oral cancer, artificial intelligence (AI) and the adverse effects of vaping. Now operating as an ECHO hub, the MPOHC hosts monthly seminars, collaborating with professionals and practitioners, drawing listeners from all over Mississippi and from as far away as India.

The MPOHC is partnered with the UMMC Center for Telehealth in the Mississippi school-based telehealth grant to provide education for school nurses about dental issues they may encounter in children. This project, a component of a grant awarded to the UMMC Center for Telehealth via the Mississippi Department of Education, enables the MPOHC to connect with 668 schools and their school nurses across the state, offering quick facts and tutorials on addressing dental issues. Additionally, live education sessions help nurses address dental emergencies and identify causes of pain. As a part of this initiative, the MPOHC team has enlisted dentists from all over the state and created a contact list that school nurses can use as both a resource and a referral source for students' guardians.

Just as educating school nurses about dental health is essential for children's well-being, providing middle-school aged children with oral hygiene education could significantly reduce the occurrence of cavities.

In 2024, the MPOHC began phase one of a two-year research study in collaboration with the Mississippi State Department of Health in the South Delta School District in Rolling Fork, MS. The study aims to ascertain whether educating students on the significance of oral health maintenance will reduce their likelihood of future oral caries (decay) and whether extending the same education to their parent or guardian yields any impact.

In the initial phase of the 30-month study, oral exams were administered to 69 fourth through ninth graders to identify all instances of decayed, missing and filled teeth. This served as a baseline against which the researchers will conduct subsequent evaluations of each student every six months throughout the study.
 
During the remainder of the study, the students are split into one of three groups: the control group, which will receive a bag of oral health supplies; group two, which will receive the same bag and  presentations on oral health; and group three, which will receive a dental care bag and oral health presentations to both the students and their caregivers. 

“We’ve searched the medical literature to find a similar study and haven’t found one like this yet,” said Dr. Carr. “The target population of 12 to 14-year-old children, the length of the study and the type of intervention has not been researched in this combination of factors, so we are very interested to see what will come after months of studying this group of participants.” 

In addition to education, the MPOHC is also providing services to remote areas in the state where dental offices are scarce. The UMMC SOD Department of Dental Hygiene paid a visit to the Cary Christian Center in Cary, MS. The Department hosted a summer camp event and over 40 children from the surrounding area who lacked access to local dental care participated in various games and group activities. The dental hygiene Class of 2025, supervised by Robert Sadler, D.D.S., UMMC SOD Assistant Professor, and the dental hygiene faculty, provided oral hygiene instructions and preventative care for the children during the event.