By: Javacia Harris Bowser
It all started with a mass email from the American Dental Association.
The email shared an article reporting that Hispanic children have more dental caries than children in other ethnic groups and that Hispanic adults have higher rates of dental extractions than other populations.
Vashti Convers, a student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Dentistry wanted to know why this was happening and she wanted to do something about it.
“Being Hispanic, that’s something that interests me and affects my population,” Vashti says. “Language barriers and a lack of health literacy are the two biggest issues within our community that lead to these problems.”
Vashti teamed up with her friend and fellow dental student Katelynn Clark and the duo successfully applied for the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship.
“Vashti and I instantly clicked the first day we met,” Katelynn says. “We have a lot in common, including our Latino heritage that we are proud to share. During our first year as students, we learned a lot about how the dental school works and saw many barriers to finding care that the Spanish speaking population in Birmingham dealt with. We spoke at length about our families and seeing similar patterns in the communities that we grew up in, and we decided that we wanted to work together to foster change in this pattern in whatever small way we can.”
For their Fellowship project, Katelynn and Vashti plan to create approximately 20 short videos that will be shared on the UAB dental school’s social media channels. The videos will be recorded in both English and Spanish and Katelynn and Vashti hope the content will be reposted by the Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama (HICA) and other organizations.
Vashti Convers admits she has a love/hate relationship with social media.
“It’s nice having information available on social media, but sometimes having so much information can lead to misinformation,” she says.
Case in point, Vashti has friends and family members who believe oil pulling is the answer to all dental ailments — because an influencer on Instagram said so.
But this just makes Vashti more determined to use the power of social media for good.
The videos will go beyond simply encouraging viewers to brush and floss their teeth.
“Let’s talk about your eating habits,” Vashti says. “That has a lot to do with your oral health. If you’re drinking soda all throughout the day, that is going to have an effect on your teeth. If you want to drink soda, drink it at lunch, but finish it at lunch and be done with that. You can have these things, but it’s about how you do it.”
The videos will also discuss periodontitis or gum disease and explore correlations between dental health and diabetes, another condition that disproportionately affects Hispanic communities.
How much sugar should parents allow their children to eat? How much fluoride do children need to keep their teeth healthy? These are also questions that the videos will address.
Along with creating videos for social media, Katelynn and Vashti plan to educate patients IRL. In addition to the work they do regularly through the UAB dental school clinic, they also plan to attend events hosted by HICA and health screening days at places like Cahaba Valley Healthcare. At these events they’ll invite community members and patients to watch brief educational videos and conduct surveys to help gauge what the viewers learned.
Katelynn and Vashti, both third year dentistry students, haven’t decided exactly what they want to do after dental school. Vashti, a Huntsville native, has been considering staying in Birmingham to work specifically with the city’s Hispanic population.
Katelynn just knows she wants to put service first.
“After dental school, I hope to be an advocate for the underserved populations for whatever community I end up in,” she says. “I have no idea what part of the country my career will lead me to, but I know there is always more work to be done in promoting equal access to medical care for any patient population in the US.”
Whatever they do, Katelynn and Vashti believe their Albert Schweitzer Fellowship project will help prepare them for their future roles.
“I think that working on this project will help prepare me to embrace the challenges that come with opening a practice for all patients, no matter what language they speak or what income level they may meet,” Katelynn, a native of Gadsden, says. “I think I will be more aware of the obstacles that may seem small to some people, but in reality can present as huge barriers to others.”
Vashti says that working on the project already has improved their problem solving and communication skills, taught them how to be both flexible and focused while going after goals and allowed them to connect with important organizations also striving to make a difference.
“Sometimes I would say solutions are kind of just like little Band-Aids that are put on the issue,” Vashti says. But she’s determined to be part of a real antidote for the ailments our health care systems face.
To see their work, follow the UAB School of Dentistry on Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/uabschoolofdentistry/, YouTube – @UABDentistry and Facebook – @UAB.Dentistry, and check out two of Katelynn and Vashti’s recent reels
