A Multi-disciplinary Approach to Reduce Children’s Oral Health Disparities

The speaker is a board-certified pediatric dentist with advanced research training in public health. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oral Health Sciences at the University of Washington and an Investigator at the Northwest Center to Reduce Oral Health Disparities. Dr. Chi graduated from the University of Washington School of Dentistry in 2006, completed residencies in pediatric dentistry and dental public health, and earned a PhD in oral health services research from the University of Iowa in 2009. He received national accolades for his dissertation work, which focused on the impact of chronic condition status and severity on access to dental care for Medicaid-enrolled children. Dr. Chi received an NIDCR/NIH K08 Career Development Award to support research on understanding disparities in access to dental care for publicly-insured children, the sociobehavioral determinants of children's dental care use, outcomes associated with dental utilization, and conceptual model building on oral health behaviors. Dr. Chi also has interests in the determinants of dental care transitions for adolescents with chronic conditions, neighborhood-level health effects, and preventive health care decision making.