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Karen Yoder Karen M. Yoder, M.S.D., Ph.D.

Professor
Director, Community Dentistry Division
Director, SEAL INDIANA

Karen Masbaum Yoder, MSD, PhD is Professor and Director of the Division of Community Dentistry in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry and Director of the SEAL INDIANA Program. Other roles include Adjunct faculty appointments in the Department of Public Health, IU School of Medicine and at Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne. Dr. Yoder is a member of the Community Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Consultancy Network and is a faculty member for CCPH’s annual summer service-learning institute. Previous appointments include Research Associate, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Region V Head Start Oral Health Consultant.

Her responsibilities at IUSD include teaching dental public health, including oral health policy skills, and promoting and coordinate service-learning and community engaged scholarship. She is the founding director of SEAL INDIANA, IUSD’s state-wide mobile dental sealant program. Since 2003, using a 40’ mobile dental clinic and portable dental equipment SEAL INDIANA has provided services for more than 17,000 children from low-income families throughout Indiana. In 2000 Dr. Yoder initiated an international service-learning program at IUSD. With the help of other IUSD faculty members and students, the program has grown and now participants have developed partnerships and annual programs with eight communities located in six countries. In the 2008-2009 academic year 50 IUSD students and faculty members will engage in broad preparation followed by travel and work through IUSD’s international service-learning program.

In 2008 Dr. Yoder received the Indiana University Thomas Ehrlich Award for Excellence in Service Learning and the Distinguished Hoosier Award from Governor Mitch Daniels. Other honors include: Partner of the Year, Goodwill Industries of Indianapolis; IUPUI Boyer Scholar; IUSN Fellow of the Institute for Action Research in Health; Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honorary Society, IUSD Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award; Indiana Dental Association Charles W. Gish Award.

Dr. Yoder began her dental career as a dental hygienist. She was in clinical dental hygiene practice for 10 years in Indiana following which she, her husband, Dr. Keith Yoder, and their four children lived in Tanzania, East Africa where they worked in dental public health for five years. After the Yoders returned to Indiana she became a consultant for the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) until 2002. During the 1980s and 1990s she completed the MSD in dental public health and a PhD in dental science with a minor in health policy and health of the community. Her dissertation research explored the causes of severe dental and skeletal fluorosis among residents of an area of East Africa where there was negligible fluoride in the water supply. She joined Indiana University School of Dentistry as a full time faculty member in 2002.
 
Selected Publications

Yoder KM, Maupome G, Ofner S, Swigonski N. Knowledge and Use of Fluoride Among Indiana Dental Professionals. Journal of Public Health Dentistry Vol.67(3)140-147 Summer 2007

Yoder KM, Mabelya L, Robison VA, Dunipace AJ, Brizendine EJ, Stookey GK. Severe dental fluorosis in a Tanzanian population consuming water with negligible fluoride concentration. Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology 1998; 26:382-93

Yoder KM. A Framework for Service-Learning in Dental Education. Journal of Dental Education. 2006;70(2)115-123

Yoder KM. Indiana’s Dental Workforce: Distribution and Related Issues. JIDA 2007; 86(2)10-15

Yoder KM. The Status of Kindergarten and Middle School Entry Dental Examinations in Indiana, JIDA 2005; 83(5)15-18

Garetto L, Yoder KM. Basic Oral Health Needs: A Professional Priority? Journal of Dental Education. 70(11)2006: 1174-1179.

Yoder KM. Community Oral Health, Chapter 31, in Dentistry for the Child and Adolescent. Editors, McDonald and Avery. Mosby, 7th edition. 2000



 
Academic Background

PhD Major: Dental Science. Minor: Health Policy and Health of the Community
MSD Dental Public Health
BS Public Health Dental Hygiene
ASDH Dental Hygiene
 
Contact Information

Phone: 317.278.7872 
Fax: 317.274.5425
Email: kmyoder@iupui.edu
 
Indiana University School of Dentistry
Oral Health Research Institute
415 Lansing St., Indianapolis, IN 46202