Page 88 - 2021 AGD ADVOCACY

History Part 5
2012: The Global Literature and what the evidence says and doesn't say

• The Kellogg Foundation paid American DPHs (Nash, Friedman, Mathu-Muju,
et al) to publish findings from all the global literature they could find about
dental therapists.

• They claim there are 50+ countries with some form of dental therapists over
the last 50-95 years.

• Outcomes correlate to eliminating barriers to care by providing free care,
on a regular basis, on school grounds, for school-age children. DTs value
relates to cultural similarities, cheap training, and lower cost than
training and hiring dentists. Without deployability, however, it never
works out very well.
• After 50-95 years with DTs in their dental workforce, those 50 countries,
continue to have pretty much the very same list of barriers to care and
Access to Care issues for the same disadvantaged, underserved
communities and populations as we do in the US.
• The overwhelming majority of DT's scopes of practice in those countries
is aimed for treatment of school age children in school dental clinics.