CDHC Learning Opportunity

What is a Community Dental Health Coordinator?

CDHCs are community health workers with dental skills, and they are members of the dental team. They focus on case management, navigation, oral health education and promotion, motivational interviewing, and community mapping. Their expertise links patients into available, but underutilized, dental care.

CDHC Education and Training

• Train to interact with communities in a culturally competent manner, understanding the people, language, and barriers to oral health in those communities.
• Understand the people, language, and barriers to oral health in the communities where they work.
• Already know the people with whom they will work in some cases.
• Focus on community outreach, coordination of care, educational and social interventions in the community, and prevention.
• Work under a dentist's supervision, and within the confines of state dental practice acts, in clinics, schools, and other public health settings with people of similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
• Collect information to assist dentists in triaging patients.
• Address social, environmental, and health literacy issues.
• Provide dental health education and help people develop goals to enhance their oral health.
• Cookordination care in accordance with a dentist's instructions.
• Help patients navigate the complexities of the health care system.

CDHC Curriculum Outline

• Developed by experts in education, public health, and dentistry to meet the core competencies.
• Designed for online delivery over an 8-month period, followed by the design and performance of a demonstration project for student skill development and evaluation.
• Includes basics of public health and outreach, communication and cultural competence, motivational interviewing skills, legal and ethical issues, and developing advocacy and intervention programs.