An interprofessional education initiative: Introducing a local anesthesia dental course for nurse practitioner and physician assistant students.

Purpose/objective: To assess the impact of local anesthesia (LA) course for physician assistant (PA) and adult gerontology-acute care nurse practitioner (NP) program students on knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and intention to incorporate skills in clinical practice.

Methods: The course was conducted by dental faculty for forty-eight PA and seven NP students and consisted of two lecture hours on anatomy of the oral cavity, anesthesia and pain management, 2 hours of preclinic lab where participants practiced injection technique on mannikins, and a clinical practicum conducted by dental school faculty and residents where students observed dental treatment including administration of LA, and discussed symptom triage by NPs and PAs for patients with dental problems including orofacial pain, initial management including LA, and patient referral to dentists. An online survey was administered to all students before and after the course to assess changes in knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and intention to incorporate LA administration skills into clinical practice and elicit students' perception of program quality.

Using Tweetchats to Build Community Awareness and Advocacy around Alzheimer's Disease for Latinos.

U.S. Latinos are 1.

Use of #SaludTues Tweetchats for the Dissemination of Culturally Relevant Information on Latino Health Equity: Exploratory Case Study.

Background: Latinx people comprise 18% of the US adult population and a large share of youth and continue to experience inequities that perpetuate health disparities. To engage Latinx people in advocacy for health equity based on this population's heavy share of smartphone, social media, and Twitter users, Salud America! launched the #SaludTues Tweetchat series. In this paper, we explore the use of #SaludTues to promote advocacy for Latinx health equity.

Communication for Awareness and Action on Inequitable Impacts of COVID-19 on Latinos.

In response to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in 2020, the national Salud America! Latino health equity program at University of Texas Health San Antonio applied its digital content curation model to create and communicate culturally relevant news, stories, and data to raise immediate awareness and generate action against the pandemic's inequitable impacts on U.S. Latinos.

Advocacy, Efficacy, and Engagement in an Online Network for Latino Childhood Obesity Prevention.

Salud America! is a national network created to engage Latino researchers, health professionals and community leaders in actions to reduce Latino childhood obesity. An online survey of 148 Salud America! network members investigated relationships between (1) their levels of engagement with the network, (2) self- and collective-efficacy, and (3) behavioral intentions to engage in advocacy for policies that can help reduce Latino childhood obesity. Analyses of these data found that higher levels of Salud America! engagement was associated with collective-advocacy efficacy-greater confidence in organized group advocacy as a way of advancing policies to reduce Latino childhood obesity.