Identifying Public Policy and Advocacy Practices Among Millennial Pediatric Dental Residents

This study's purpose was to identify public policy and advocacy practices among millennial pediatric dental residents in order to provide recommendations for engagement to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) leadership and pediatric dental residency program directors. A total of 138 residents from the 2016 Public Policy Advocacy Conference (PPAC) participated in a 13-item survey addressing demographics, advocacy education experience, student debt and financial contributions, resident training interests, the impact of the PPAC, and technology utilization. Sixty responses (45 percent response) were analyzed using SPSS software. Residents believed that the PPAC was more beneficial than advocacy didactic education (P=0.008). The impact of the PPAC versus clinical experience was not significant (P=0.61). Pediatric dental residents were more likely to contribute financial donations to the AAPD's advocacy efforts following attendance of a program like the PPAC (P=0.051). Pediatric dental residents who participated in the PPAC or a local clinically oriented experience, perceived these two types of activities to provide greater value in their advocacy education than that of a didactic lecture in this subject area. Study results can be used to guide program directors in developing millennial-specific, resident-driven advocacy education experiences to fulfill Commission on Dental Accreditation advocacy curricula requirements.