ArticleJournal of public health dentistry2018
Dental therapists linked to improved dental outcomes for Alaska Native communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Article in Journal of public health dentistry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Oral Health Workforce and American Indian and Alaska Native Communities: a Systematic Review.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2024Pooled it
- Early Childhood Caries in Indigenous Communities.Pediatrics · 2021Guideline
- Making the Case for Dental Therapists in the United States.Annals of global health · 2026Article
- Weaving oral health provider perspectives to guide future dental therapy advocacy and implementation efforts.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Filling the gaps sustainably: an island case study of rural dental workforce challenges.Frontiers in dental medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Indigenous data governance approaches applied in research using routinely collected health data: a scoping review.NPJ digital medicine · 2024Article
- Native American Community Perspectives on Oral Health Access: Understanding the Impact of Rurality.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Children's Oral Health Initiative: workers' perspectives on its impact in First Nations communities.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2023Article
- Feedback on audit and action planning for dental caries control: a qualitative study to investigate the acceptability among interdisciplinary pediatric dental care teams.Frontiers in oral health · 2023Article
- Undoing structural racism in dentistry: Advocacy for dental therapy.Journal of public health dentistry · 2022Review
- Comparison of Dental Care Visits Before and After Adoption of a Policy to Expand the Dental Workforce in Minnesota.JAMA health forum · 2022Article
- Using electronic dental records to establish a surveillance system for dental decay in rural Western Alaska.Journal of public health dentistry · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesDental Health Aide Therapists (DHATs) have been part of the dental workforce in Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim (YK) Delta since 2006. They are trained to provide preventive and restorative care such as filling and extractions. In this study, we evaluated community-level dental outcomes associated with DHATs.
methodsThis was a secondary data analysis of Alaska Medicaid and electronic health record data for individuals in Alaska's YK Delta (2006-2015). The independent variable was the number of DHAT treatment days in each community. Child outcomes were preventive care, extractions, and general anesthesia. Adult outcomes were preventive care and extractions. We estimated Spearman partial correlation coefficients to test our hypotheses that increased DHAT treatment days would be associated with larger proportions utilizing preventive care and smaller proportions receiving extractions at the community-level.
resultsDHAT treatment days were positively associated with preventive care utilization and negatively associated with extractions for children and adults (P < 0.0001). DHAT treatment days were not associated with increased dental treatment under general anesthesia for children.
conclusionsDental therapists are associated with more preventive care and fewer extractions. State-level policies should consider dental therapists as part of a comprehensive solution to meet the dental care needs of individuals in underserved communities and help achieve health equity and social justice.
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Registered trials
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