A five-year, $1.3 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) will enable the UCSF School of Dentistry to more than double the number of community clinics it operates.

Clinical Professor and Assistant Dean for Clinical Administration William F. Bird, DDS, MPH, DHP, confirms the urgent need for this expansion. "Twenty-eight percent of the state's young people have no dental insurance, which is roughly twice the number of children in the state without medical insurance," Bird explains. "Nearly half of all California preschoolers and 12 percent of all high school students have never been to a dentist."

The RWJF grant will enable the School to help remedy this crisis by increasing from five to 13 the number of its free clinics, which are part of the Campaign for UCSF effort to promote healthy communities. RWJF funds will also be used to recruit students to two programs encouraging underrepresented groups to enter dentistry: the School's Post-Baccalaureate and Recruitment-by-Alumni Programs.

Based in Princeton, New Jersey, RWJF is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health care. With this grant, the Foundation is making increased access to dental care a reality for thousands of California children.