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Who Will Serve? Assessing Recruitment of Underrepresented Minority and Low‐Income Dental Students to Increase Access to Dental Care
Author(s) -
Andersen Ronald M.,
Carreon Daisy C.,
Davidson Pamela L.,
Nakazono Terry T.,
Shahedi Shirin,
Gutierrez John J.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of dental education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.53
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1930-7837
pISSN - 0022-0337
DOI - 10.1002/j.0022-0337.2010.74.6.tb04903.x
Subject(s) - underrepresented minority , low income , ethnic group , medicine , dental education , family medicine , gerontology , psychology , environmental health , medical education , political science , socioeconomics , sociology , law
This article uses data from the 2007 American Dental Education Association survey of dental school seniors to assess their intentions to serve underserved populations according to the students’ underrepresented minority (URM) and income status. Dental school recruitment and retention programs that concentrate exclusively on URM students will not benefit most low‐income students since 83 percent of them are not URM. Recruiting URM students leads to more graduating students with intentions to serve minorities. Whether the income of URM students was high or low, about half in each income group stated that more than 25 percent of their patients would be underserved minorities, compared to 28 percent of the low‐income non‐URM students and 17 percent of the higher income non‐URM students. However, our multivariable results suggest that recruitment of both low‐income groups (URM and non‐URM) rather than high income regardless of ethnicity might be especially helpful in producing graduates who choose public service. URM/income status was not significantly related to serving special care or rural populations.