MFH gives $500k grant for Missouri dental program
Posted: November 1, 2011
Future access to oral healthcare just became much brighter for Missouri’s most vulnerable populations, including the state’s uninsured, underinsured, and underserved populations of all ages.
The Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) announced it will provide an initial $500,000 grant to ATSU to help the university plan and develop a new and innovative dental program in Kirksville. Additional MFH funding of approximately $2.5 million has been requested by ATSU for its subsequent 2012 developmental/ start-up phase and 2013 launch/implementation phase, contingent upon successful completion of the initial planning and development phase.
ATSU expects to open its Missouri dental program with its first class of 40 to 45 students in fall 2013. The four-year Missouri dental curriculum is being modeled after the highly successful and innovative dental program at ATSU’s Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health in Mesa. The goal of ATSU’s new Missouribased dental program is to educate and produce a whole new generation of communityminded dentists who will help fill oral health workforce gaps, including in Community Health Centers (CHCs) across the state.
ATSU President Jack Magruder said, “Adding the dental program to our ATSU Missouri campus not only will enhance interprofessional education in our state, but also provide meaningful oral health outcomes, especially among Missouri’s most vulnerable populations. With this generous support from MFH, we are confident that our dental program in Kirksville — involving local and other Missouri CHCs — will be highly successful and will help fulfill the missions of both ATSU and MFH.”