Infrastructure Development Tools

Activity 6: Policy Development

State oral health programs should conduct a periodic assessment of laws, regulations, administrative policies, and systems-level strategies that offer the potential to reduce oral diseases.

The assessment can reveal opportunities for overcoming barriers, capitalizing on assets available in the state, increasing capacity, and coordinating prevention interventions. In addition, the assessment can help a state develop a policy action plan and implement a set of activities that include the priorities established from the assessment process.

The state oral health program management will then have the information necessary to educate policymakers about how to increase the capacity and effectiveness of the state oral health program.

Examples of such changes in health systems and policies include mandates for fluoridation in communities with water systems that serve a specified number of households and increased Medicaid reimbursement for specific oral health services.

States with advanced capacity in this area may:

• Implement policies that support evidence- and population-based strategies consistent with the state oral health plan. Examples may be oral health policies, legislation, regulations, ordinances, guidelines and standards that promote optimal oral health such as water fluoridation and school-based or school-linked dental sealant programs, and statutory authority for the state oral health program and/or state dental director position;
• Increase the extent to which population-based interventions address established objectives that are informed by surveillance data and prioritized from the state oral health plan, the policy action plan, or the program strategic plan; and
• Evaluate the impact of and lessons learned from implementation of policies

Additional Resources

CDHP Oral Health Policy Tool Guidebook* – A guide containing templates, samples, and reference materials that will contribute to state oral health policy development. Provided by the Children’s Dental Health Project (CDHP).

Environment Assessment Instrument Tool (EAI) (PDF–92K) – The EAI tool was designed to aid systematic assessment of community- and state-level environmental and policy factors that may impact oral health programs at various stages. Results can be used to determine leverage points and to identify barriers, facilitators, and respective strategies to address them.

For more information, contact us.

* Links to non-Federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. Links do not constitute an endorsement of any organization by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. The CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at this link.

Page last reviewed: September 15, 2009
Page last modified: October 21, 2010
Content source: Division of Oral Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion