From Alaska to Minnesota to Maine, there is increasing interest in dental therapists as a means to enlarge the dental workforce and increase access to oral health care. Alaska is in the forefront, having deployed dental therapists, named Dental Health Aide Therapists or DHATs, in rural communities since 2004. The first three cohorts of this program were trained at Otago University in New Zealand, where dental therapy was initiated in 1921. The “All-Alaska” program transferred training from New Zealand to the new DENTEX training program in Alaska. Developed by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in conjunction with the University of Washington Medical School, the first class of four DHATs has just graduated, bringing the total number of practicing DHATs in Alaska to 14. Current DENTEX students in their first and second year of training also total 14. The Kellogg and Rasmuson Foundations have recently contracted the Research Triangle Institute International (RTI) to evaluate the practicing DHAT in Alaska.  (Photo Courtesy of Ron Nagle)