Strategies to Improve Dental Care Utilization During Pregnancy for Vulnerable Urban Women: The New York University/Bellevue Oral Health Program Experience.

We designed the New York University/Bellevue Prenatal Oral Health Program to improve access to prenatal dental care. From July 2018 to March 2020, we screened 420 prenatal patients and referred them for follow-up dental care. We tested two interventions to improve dental care utilization and found that providing patients with an immediately scheduled dental appointment (a simple, no-cost task) at the time of the dental screening was more effective than employing a patient navigator, a relatively costly intervention in terms of time and money. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print August 13, 2026:e1-e5. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308613).