National Association of Community Health Centers
7501 Wisconsin Ave Suite 1100W
Bethesda, MD
United States
NACHC is the national member association for community health centers, founded in 1971, which promotes efficient, high quality, comprehensive health care that is accessible, culturally and linguistically competent, community directed, and patient-centered for all. For over ten years, NACHC has played a variety of roles in partnership with CareQuest Institute including providing direct support to Primary Care Associations, integrating oral health into the NACHC Value-Transformation Framework, integrating population health into oral health efforts, and advocating for oral health policy at the federal level.
NACHC promotes the inclusion of oral health in all workforce programs. One area of focus with this grant will be health center programs and partnerships for training, recruiting, and retaining Dental Therapists. Another area of focus will be increasing the collection of social risk data and disaggregating race and ethnicity data, with specific attention to the AA NH/PI population. Working in partnership with the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), NACHC will address health equity data gaps for the AA NH/PI community.
Through this grant opportunity, NACHC will deliver the following:
• The creation of two issue briefs – one will share findings of a national environmental scan/literature search for state policy, regulatory and funding for dental workforce development. The other will share findings of an environmental scan/literature search of culturally responsible tools and resources for AA NH/PI, focused on how disaggregated oral health population data can be gathered and used to address oral health needs.
• Presentations on finding at a minimum of three conference/professional convenings
• The delivery of two learning activities on dental therapy
• The Identification of two evidence based SDoH measures for measurement and analysis
• The creation of one executive summary
All materials created through this grant will be available for sharing with CareQuest Institute and NACHC partners.
In addition to the work described above, NACHC will serve as a thought partner with CareQuest Institute to collaborate around opportunities such as deepening the role of community engagement within community health centers and the potential role of the dental safety net in advancing minimally invasive care.
The requested budget for this proposal is $275,000. This request represents 0.6% of the organization’s overall budget.