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Monday Roundtable Luncheon
Sarah Raskin, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University
Aderonke Akinkugbe, DDS, MPH, PhD
Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Dentistry
Tiffany Williams, DDS, MSD
Assistant Professor of Pediatric Dentistry
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry
Shillpa Naavaal, BDS, MS, MPH
Assistant Professor
Oral Health Promotion and Community Outreach, School of Dentistry, Virginia Commonwealth University
Oswaldo Moreno, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Virginia Commonwealth University
Dina Garcia, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Medicine
Sarah Jane Brubaker, PhD
Associate Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University
Tegwyn Brickhouse, DDS, PhD
Associate Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Dentistry
Community-engaged research (CEnR) is an approach where researchers and community partners collaborate to generate scholarly knowledge and address a community’s priorities, interests, and concerns. CEnR occurs through various research designs, methodologies, and depths of collaboration. Although CEnR is a mainstay in public health, medicine, education, and other fields, it is less common in oral health and dental research. In 2016, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) formed an interdisciplinary team to conduct CEnR on oral health disparities. This roundtable synthesizes learnings from four projects and highlights promises, pitfalls, challenges, and opportunities of conducting CEnR. Projects include: 1. a health needs assessment at a Title 1 elementary school where county stakeholders are planning a wellness center; 2. a mixed methods study of dental under-utilization at a sliding scale clinic that primarily serves immigrants; 3. two complementary studies examining low-income pregnant women’s awareness, barriers, and facilitators to using a Medicaid dental benefit, in partnership with the state public health agency; and 4. the incorporation of oral health into a long-standing academic partnership with a Latinx community center. By the end of the roundtable, attendees will be able to: 1. Compare and contrast different approaches to CEnR; 2. Describe facilitators and barriers of successful community research partnerships; 3. Explain the effects of CEnR on scholarship and practice; 4. Identify opportunities and strategies to use CEnR in their own work on oral health and dental care.