As part of the UF College of Dentistry’s statewide mission to expand the availability of specialized oral healthcare, its Mobile Dental Clinic provides accessible dental treatment for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or IDDs, mental health conditions and other complex medical needs.
Hosted at The Arc of Alachua County, the mobile clinic offers oral health screenings, teledentistry, behavioral support and preventive treatments. Now, a $100,000 Health Access Hero Award from Sun Life U.S. and DentaQuest is providing the funding urgently needed to increase that care.
“The 2026 Health Access Heroes embody the changes we need in healthcare,” said David Healy, president of Sun Life U.S., in a recent press release. “They represent the best of our communities, dedicated to addressing health inequities and transforming lives.”
Securing this competitive national grant will allow the clinic to double its operations from one to two days per week, add a board-certified behavior analyst to the team and significantly increase clinical rotation exposure for UF dental students.
When the clinic originally launched under its initial grant, it operated just two days per month. Over the past two years, Bryan Smallwood, D.M.D., M.P.H., C.P.H., a clinical assistant professor in the UF Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science, has been instrumental in expanding operations to a weekly schedule.
“Provider shortages in special care dentistry generally fall into three categories,” Smallwood explained:
- Providers who do not treat individuals with special health care needs
- Providers who want to treat these patients but lack the confidence or specific training to do so
- Providers who are willing to treat these patients but lack the time or capacity to meet overwhelming demand
“This $100,000 award directly addresses that third challenge by allowing us to expand the capacity of our mobile dental clinic,” he said. “Expanding mobile clinic days each week will allow us to provide care to many more Floridians who have struggled to access dental services.”
To responsibly understand the ecosystem that causes a lack of access to dental care among this patient population, the mobile dental clinic team actively assesses and addresses the hurdles to a healthy smile that many patients and caregivers seem to face.
The hurdles, Smallwood says, are rarely about the lack of patient cooperation or the explicit need for complex hospital-based operating room care.
“For many individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, receiving care in a familiar, trusted environment reduces anxiety and creates a more positive dental experience,” he said.
The addition of a board-certified behavior analyst will bring a powerful new dimension to that familiar setting.
“Integrating behavioral expertise into the clinic will strengthen our ability to provide desensitization services, support patients with complex behavioral needs and improve the overall effectiveness of dental care for individuals who have historically faced significant barriers to treatment,” Smallwood said.
A major element of the clinic’s success thus far has been its partnership with The Arc of Alachua County, a local non-profit organization that provides residential, day training and advocacy services for children and adults with IDDs.
Smallwood said the vision for the mobile clinic has been adapted over the course of the past two years as UFCD’s understanding of the target patient population has increased. He said the original plan was to transport the clinic’s equipment throughout Alachua County and provide care at multiple locations.
“What we discovered, however, is that partnering with a trusted community organization like The Arc creates an even more effective model,” Smallwood said. “Many of our patients are already familiar with The Arc. Transportation through local bus routes and group homes is readily available, and caregivers know exactly where to find us because we maintain a consistent presence there.”
This centralized model, Smallwood says, has also expanded the reach of care beyond the college’s physical reach in Alachua and Collier counties.
“Because the clinic’s homebase is conveniently located near Interstate 75, we treat patients from as far away as Pensacola and southwest Florida,” he said, adding that the team continues to travel within the community for screenings and initial evaluations.
“Then we schedule patients at The Arc site for treatment when additional care is needed,” he said.
Patients aren’t the only group who will benefit as the clinic continues to grow its capacity and specialized services.
“The increased clinic capacity will also expand educational opportunities for our dental students,” Smallwood said.
Already, Smallwood instructs a special care dentistry elective that trains 10 UFCD students per semester to provide care in the mobile unit, while mentoring roughly 46 senior dental students annually during community rotations at the Marion County Health Department.
“We are currently working to increase enrollment in our special care dentistry elective, allowing more students to gain meaningful, hands-on experience caring for patients with disabilities,” he said.
By providing this service-oriented clinical exposure, UFCD hopes to dismantle the second provider shortage challenge by preparing future dentists to confidently treat a patient population that most practicing dentists today feel unequipped to serve.
“As the program continues to grow, our long-term goal is to transition this experience into a required clinical rotation so that every graduating dentist is better prepared and more confident in providing care for individuals with special health care needs,” he said.
