The Northwest Center for Public Health Practice (NWCPHP) Student Collaborative Project Stipends are intended to help students defray living expenses during their hands-on public health training experience for public and nonprofit health organizations in Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon. These collaborative projects involve a faculty member and a student working in close collaboration to enhance public health services to medically underserved communities. Pooja Rajanbabu, one of our research assistants, has been awarded this stipend for her cross-sectional study entitled, “Evaluating Refugee Children’s Oral Health in Washington State.”
Her project will establish a baseline of oral health data for refugee children in our state and will compare their dental health to their non-refugee peers. Through partnerships with the UW Timothy A. DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health, UW School of Dentistry, WA Department of Health (DOH), WA Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), and WA Health Care Authority (HCA), this cross-sectional study will utilize Medicaid claims of refugee children who arrived in Washington in 2015. This research will inform interventional studies that can evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions aimed at improving refugee children’s oral health.