Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute on Aging awarded a $460,625 Project Grant (CFDA 93.866 – Aging Research) to the University of Massachusetts Medical School on July 15, 2026, for a 24-month research initiative examining oral health outcomes in U.S. nursing homes. Under this R21 exploratory grant, the research team will leverage the federally mandated Minimum Data Set 3.0 (MDS) collected on virtually all nursing home residents to establish contemporary national estimates of oral health indicators in this vulnerable population. The project will merge MDS data (2011–2023) with Medicare claims information, nursing home operational records, and area-level workforce data to identify populations with the greatest unmet oral health needs and evaluate the effectiveness of regulatory and policy strategies in improving oral health care delivery within nursing facilities.

This research directly supports the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) Strategic Goal 3 and responds to longstanding recommendations in the 2000 Surgeon General Oral Health Report and the 2021 NIDCR Oral Health Report calling for improved oral health monitoring and care in nursing homes. The project addresses a critical data gap: nursing home residents have been systematically excluded from national oral health surveillance despite representing a frail, elderly population with documented high burden of untreated dental disease, tooth loss, and periodontitis. By establishing baseline measurements and predictive models using existing administrative data infrastructure, the initiative will generate essential evidence for program planning, policy evaluation, and resource allocation to address oral health disparities in long-term care settings.