Examining provider bias in an underserved dental patient population: Improving health equity through a Dental School Practice-based Research Network (dsPBRN)

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PROJECT SUMMARY Health care disparities and inequities are national problems. To build the next generation of clinician scientists to advance health equity and reduce disparities, it is critical to provide clinical and research training through the lens of health equity. Healthcare equity concerns need to be addressed through the providers’ engagement in real-world patient care environments. The development of patient-based research network (PBRN) activities within clinical dental educational care programs offers the potential for meaningful research as well as building a culture supporting a broader and more diverse cohort of future practitioners to participate in community based PBRNs with greater capacity for equity considerations in both their practice and research activities. To build this future capacity, the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and the Howard University (HU) are partnered with the shared goals to foster a culture of scientific inquiry and collaboration within our clinical dental education environments with scientific partnerships defined by shared strengths and synergies across institutions, to build foundational educational experiences in clinical practice-based research that encourage a more energized, diverse, and inclusive clinician scientist/practitioner, and to collect specific data examining the effects of racial bias on clinical care in our two academic oral health centers. To achieve these goals, we will integrate four programmatic components: 1) To establish program-specific educational pathways in clinical and practice-based research for students and faculty that include an understanding of healthcare disparities and equity awareness among providers. 2) To utilize inter-institutional strengths to build collaborative engagement opportunities through programmatic guidance, education, mentoring, and school-based practice research activities. 3) To develop inter-institutional mentoring partnerships between HU and the UMB faculty and students that foster bidirectional engagement (collaboration). 4) To develop a PBRN study providing clinical practice-based research experiences examining associations of racial bias with provision of dental care that align with student and faculty experiences and training in this program. Our study hypothesis is that racial biases negatively impact care delivery for Black (vs. White) patients in academic dental clinical settings. The practice-based research project proposed will examine the associations between implicit/explicit biases among dental student and resident providers with delivery of care metrics across diverse, underserved patient populations in two urban dental schools, UMB and HU. Successful completion of the project will address the health disparities and expand the reach of PBRN through dental education care programs.