Infrastructure Development Tools

Activity 3: Develop or Update a State Oral Health Plan

A state oral health plan is a roadmap for accomplishing the goals and objectives that have been developed by the state oral health program in collaboration with partners and stakeholders, including the state oral health coalition and members of the public health and dental communities.

A comprehensive plan that has as its goal reducing the prevalence of oral diseases includes specific objectives related to oral health promotion, disease prevention and control, and specific risk factors. A well-crafted plan provides specific, measurable, and time-phased objectives and activities for accomplishing each stated goal.

Having a state plan gives the state the ability to compete more effectively for funding and opportunities as they arise because it will be able to demonstrate through the plan that it has support mechanisms in place to use the funding for oral health programs.

Developing a logic model for a state plan (PDF-86K) also is a good first step.

It is important to distribute the plan broadly to a range of stakeholders and to share it with public policy makers. It is advisable to periodically review the progress of attaining objectives specified by the plan and to schedule a major revision at specified intervals. A 5-year timeframe is common.

Listed below are some useful components that can be included in a state oral health plan

• Oral health infrastructure, including current resources, gaps in resources, and recommendations for eliminating these gaps.
• Description of priority populations and burden of disease.
• Healthy People 2010 objectives and state-specific objectives.
• Strategies for addressing oral health promotion across the lifespan.
• Strategies for implementing oral disease prevention programs.
• Partnerships and strategies for leveraging resources.
• Programs to address dental caries, including water fluoridation and school-based or -linked sealant programs.
• Programs to address prevention of oral cancer and periodontal disease.
• Programs addressing infection control in dental settings.
• Recommendations for evaluation, including monitoring of outcomes related to plan implementation.
• Best practices identified for replication.
• A process to maintain the state plan, including roles and responsibilities of state and local agencies.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

State Oral Health Plan Collection

State Plan Review Index Tool (PDF–85K)

Framework for developing a state oral health plan

Overview of development of a state oral health plan

One or more documents on this Web page is available in Portable Document Format (PDF). You will need Acrobat Reader to view and print these documents.

Page last reviewed: October 29, 2008
Page last modified: August 27, 2007
Content source: Division of Oral Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion