Beil receives award for outstanding achievement in dental public health
| March 08, 2011 | |
Dr. Heather Beil
Heather Beil, PhD, December 2010 alumna of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management, has been selected for the American Association of Public Health Dentistry’s Leverett Graduate Student Merit Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dental Public Health. As first place winner, Beil will receive a cash prize and travel costs to attend the National Oral Health Conference, where she will accept the award at a special presentation in Pittsburgh on Monday, April 11. “It took two-and-a-half years to complete the dissertation research from developing the idea in the proposal to carrying out the work,” Beil said. “Throughout the process, the research was a collaborative effort with members of my committee, particularly my dissertation chair, Dr. Gary Rozier. The award is a reflection of the caliber of mentorship and help I received from Gary and other committee members, including health policy and management faculty members Drs. Sally Stearns, Jessica Lee, Kristen Lich and Dr. John Preisser, a UNC biostatistics faculty member.” Beil also will present her poster “Effects of Early Preventive Dental Care on Dental Outcomes Among Medicaid Enrolled Children,” during the conference. “I am pleased that Heather’s dissertation research will be recognized at the National Oral Health Conference,” said Rozier, professor of health policy and management in UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “Her study provides valuable information for the development of guidelines for the age at which children should have their first dental visit. Early dental visits, in turn, can help reduce dental disease, the most common health problem facing children in North Carolina. The award also acknowledges the strong Medicaid and dental public health programs that we have in North Carolina, particularly their innovative information and surveillance systems, which made the study possible.” The National Oral Health Conference will be the 12th joint meeting between the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors and the American Association of Public Health Dentistry. More than 700 participants and 30 exhibitors are expected over the five days of programming.
Beil is currently a postdoctoral student at the UNC School of Nursing.
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
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