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Updated: May 28, 2026

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Sharing MedlinePlus®/MEDLINE® for information literacy education (SMILE): a dental public health information project
Julie K Gaines1, Linda S Levy, Keith W Cogdill
1Georgia Health Sciences University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership Campus, Athens, USA. jkgaines@uga.edu
Abstract:
The SMILE project represented a partnership among the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Libraries, the Gateway Clinic in Laredo, and the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. The project focused on improving dental practitioners' access to reliable information resources and integrating the best evidence into public health dental practice. Through its training program, SMILE cultivated a set of "power information users" among the dentists, dental hygienists, and community health workers (promotores) who provided public health preventive care and oral health education. The dental public health practitioners gained information literacy skills and increased their knowledge about reliable sites such as blogs, PubMed®, and MedlinePlus®. This project fostered opportunities for expanded partnerships with public health personnel.
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