Models of Collaboration for State Chronic Disease and Oral Health Programs

The purpose of the Models of Collaboration for State Chronic Disease and Oral Health Programs FOA is to facilitate programmatic collaboration between oral health and chronic disease programs within state health departments. The intent of the FOA is to build relationships within state health department chronic disease and oral health programs in order to identify programmatic synergies and encourage the efficient use of public health resources. Eligible state oral health programs may apply for a grant under this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to develop and implement a two-year pilot project that could make measurable impact on state chronic disease performance measures. Applicants should propose a set of strategies that focuses on the prevention of one selected chronic disease or risk behavior of mutual importance to both state public health programs, e.g., oral health and obesity prevention, diabetes, heart disease and stroke prevention, or tobacco control.Outcomes: Awardees of the FOA will: 1) Convene a project advisory panel of key chronic disease and oral health personnel; 2) Specify project outcomes, identify data sources for baseline and follow-up measurement and describe an approach for project data collection; 3) Develop and implement a project work plan; 4) Evaluate the project; and 5) Report project outcomes and success stories to state and national chronic disease and oral health partners. Long term goals of this project include: • Demonstrated sustainable integration of oral health and other chronic disease programmatic efforts.• Engagement of oral health personnel in chronic disease planning efforts. • Increased awareness among public health officials about the importance of oral health in chronic disease prevention.• Increased communication and shared information between chronic disease and oral health programs.• An increased number of dental professionals who screen and refer patients for chronic disease management. Program Strategies and Activities: All awardees will be required to: • Convene an advisory panel of key chronic disease and oral health personnel to provide oversight throughout the entire two year project period. Participation in this advisory panel should demonstrate the intent by the leadership of both the chronic disease and oral health programs to jointly commit time and resources to the project. The advisory panel will be responsible for developing the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the integrated project, as well as monitoring progress toward milestones throughout the project period. • Have a project work plan that clearly delineates the roles and responsibilities of staff, the distribution of project resources, and assigns responsibilities for collecting data needed for evaluating the project and monitoring changes in chronic disease performance measures. • Develop strategies that will impact one tobacco use, heart disease/stroke, obesity, or diabetes prevention state/national chronic disease performance indicator. Examples of projects that could be funded are provided below, but other innovative ideas are also welcome.• The inclusion of dental providers/dental organizations/dental clinics in state tobacco cessation efforts. This could include educating dental providers on how to screen, counsel and refer to other resources such as a state tobacco “quitline.”• Increase the number of dental providers who screen, counsel, and refer patients for hypertension and diabetes.• Collaboration on activities to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and encourage the drinking of fluoridated tap water.• Development of messaging that incorporates oral health into existing chronic disease public education campaigns.• Incorporation of oral health into chronic disease management systems, for example encouraging dental visits in diabetic patients. • Collaboration with state Medicaid programs to encourage Medicaid dental and primary care providers to do bidirectional disease screening, education and referral.