An online professional development course to train CHWs to provide oral health outreach to low-income Black guardians

KDH Research & Communication (KDHRC) submits this Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) application to expand and fully evaluate Guardians Receiving Information through Navigators (GRIN). GRIN is a culturally competent, online professional development course to prepare community health workers (CHWs) to provide oral health outreach to low- income Black parents/guardians (henceforth guardians) of children and adolescents. GRIN seeks to increase CHWs’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, perceived self-efficacy, and intentions to conduct oral health outreach to Black guardians. The need for GRIN is great. Tooth decay, especially when untreated, creates lasting and substantial physical and psychosocial consequences for children and adolescents. Minority and low-income populations have disproportionately high rates of tooth decay and related consequences. Compared to non-Hispanic White children, Black children are less likely to receive preventive dental visits, and experience more untreated tooth decay. Moreover, children living in poverty are twice as likely as children not living in poverty to experience primary tooth decay. To address these needs and meet calls to action for evidence-based programs to support CHWs to conduct oral health outreach to Black guardians of children and adolescents, KDHRC developed GRIN. Our Phase I efforts yielded a prototype with supportive feasibility results and solid partnerships on which we base our Phase II approach. Indeed, CHW professional organizations, including the National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center, the National AHEC Organization (NAO), and Morehouse School of Medicine, commit to the scientific execution and commercial distribution of this project and substantiate GRIN’s programmatic importance and commercial potential. In Phase II, we will develop additional interactive content, film video vignettes, and finalize GRIN. Then, we will conduct a well-powered and methodologically strong two-condition randomized controlled trial to test GRIN’s effectiveness. Our market research suggests a significant need and eager market, and support from myriad stakeholders committed to GRIN’s scientific rigor and rapid dissemination further substantiate GRIN’s importance and commercial potential to address extant oral health disparities that are likely exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.