Name: Martine Lévesque

Institution: École de santé publique, Université de Montréal    
Email: martine.levesque2@mcgill.ca

Project Title

Improving oral health professionals’ knowledge and competencies for treating people on social assistance: Can an online continued education course succeed?

Short Project Description

Background: People on social assistance are disproportionately affected by oral health diseases. Despite benefiting from a public dental insurance plan, they often prefer to endure chronic tooth pain  rather than consult a dentist. This appalling situation is in part due to difficult relations between persons living on low incomes and oral health professionals. Indeed, recent studies reveal that dentists experience profound frustration and difficulty understanding the behaviors and attitudes of people on social assistance and respond by adopting strategies that contribute to excluding them from care. To address this fundamental problem, practically unaddressed in North America, McGill University launched in 2006 a knowledge translation program designed to increase oral health professionals’ competencies for interacting with and treating people on social assistance. This program, based on a partnership between representatives of organized dentistry, of antipoverty groups and researchers, includes the implementation of a 6-hour long online continuing education course on poverty. Content includes filmed ethno-dramas and testimonies of people living on welfare, as well as conceptual and statistical information on poverty, health and barriers to care. The course will be offered to about 4000 dentists and 4500 dental hygienists in the province of Quebec; it will be also be integrated into the curriculum of dentistry faculties and dental hygiene training programs. Establishing the effectiveness of this educational intervention is an essential step to the potential exportation of the course to other health professionals (e.g., physicians, nurses) who serve people living on social assistance. 

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of an online continued education course for improving the attitudes and practices of oral health professionals towards people living on social assistance.

Methods: This project will unfold within a participatory research framework i.e. in continued collaboration with the group of persons involved in the course development. A mixed methods design will be applied in which both quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis will occur in parallel such as described by Creswell (Creswell, 2008). I will conduct the qualitative study that will allow us to gain an in depth understanding of the learners’ reactions and perspectives on the course and how it impacted their knowledge, beliefs and approaches to caring for people living on welfare. 

Academic Qualifications

M.Sc. Biomedical Sciences, Université de Montréal, 1993
B.Sc. Occupational Therapy, Université de Montréal, 1990

Most Recent Publications

Lévesque M, Dupéré S, Loignon C, Levine A, Laurin I, Charbonneau A, Bedos C (accepted) Bridging the poverty gap in dental education: how can people living in poverty help us? Journal of dental education.