Mia:
This project taught me a lot about dental health which is not something that I have heard much about before. While I have previously learned about the importance of increasing participation in rural medicine, I did not know that many issues currently impacting rural medicine also applies to rural dental health. Through this program, I learned a lot about issues relating to rural dental health like accessibility and affordability.
When I first started researching for this project, I stuck more towards finding articles and non-data related information about rural dental health. I later found out that this was an issue because I had created an outline based around topics that I had no idea if they had enough population based data. Overall, I had issues finding population level data directly relating to rural dental health so I had to get creative. One example is in the page for dental health literacy where I compared education levels in rural versus urban areas and applied it to the education levels of people who had low or high levels of dental health literacy.
The articles in class have also impacted my direction in this project. While reading the UBI papers for the reading reflections, it really stuck to me when they mentioned how education does not always help. I had based my pages around dental health literacy, but I realized that improving other factors such as accessibility and distance to nearest dentist could have a larger impact on rural dental health.
Tina:
This project was exciting from start to finish. I never really thought about dental care and how it is and can be different when being in other areas, like rural and urban. From seeing how many people struggle with finding affordable dental care, to the malnutrition impact on dental health and how the use of tobacco also affects it as well.
When researching tobacco and how it affects dental health lots I found out that rural areas were more easily affected by the use of it compared to urban places. When looking for more data on topics that didn’t have much information at the surface and required more research like medicare plans, I was able to gain some key skills. Being able to stumble and not panic or give up but dig deeper and find other sources and advice in solving the block made all the difference in being able to complete this project and find key points about this topic.
Nyah:
This project was not easy; there were a few bumps in the road when looking for the correct data or words to create the best website. This was all pretty new to me, from creating a website to not being too familiar with rural dental health and the different issues that come along with it. Overall, I thought that this was a great learning experience, and I think that maybe in the future there can be a different choice of topics from the health fields.
When researching rural dental health, there was so much different information. I was also able to learn about how important fluoridation and COVID-19 are to rural dental health. This project also allowed me to get outside of comfort zone and do something that I have not done before, and learn that you can’t go wrong with finding data it is all about how you explain in details to the audience.
