Adequately providing for the health care of the growing minority population in the United States requires increased racial and ethnic diversity of the health care workforce. Long-term diversity in the dental profession depends on a more diverse student population in dental schools. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Dental Medicine's (UNLV SDM) Dental Prospects Club is a predental education program that has increased the number of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students in the school by concentrating on outreach, recruitment, and retention initiatives. The approaches used by the club members and faculty advisors to increase the number of underrepresented minority students recruited to and enrolled in the UNLV SDM are discussed in this report. Also described are the strategies, methods, internal infrastructure, and organizational support used to increase the number of underrepresented minority students at the school.
Keywords: access to care; admissions; dental students; diversity; embedded cognition; oral health disparities; pipeline; underrepresented minority; whole-file review.