About the Program

Promoting State Oral Health Policies seeks to enhance state and local capacities to improve oral health, particularly for children in low income families and racial and ethnic subpopulations that experience disproportionate levels of oral disease. Objectives include:

  • providing technical assistance to state agencies and state oral health coalitions;
  • spurring action articulated by the Surgeon General's A National Call To Action To Promote Oral Health;
  • promoting evidence-validated population-level oral health promotion and disease prevention interventions;
  • coordinating between and among governmental agencies and private organizations on activities that advance oral disease prevention and health promotion;
  • advancing public and organizational policies that address the oral health of high-risk adult populations; and
  • evaluating and disseminating project activities to a wide audience.
     

The Children's Dental Health Project (CDHP) supports state efforts to enhance their oral health infrastructure through promotion of progressive oral health policy. Specifically, CDHP endeavors to:

  • Enhance state oral health infrastructure through promotion of policies that support state oral health agencies and their programs;
  • Improve the state’s oral health through promotion of state-wide community water fluoridation development;
  • Improve children’s oral health through school-based/linked sealant programs.
  • Facilitate development and implementation of state oral health plans that advance public health goals, and oral health objectives, across the lifespan.

CDHP partners with individual states, as well as the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD) and Oral Health America (OHA); these organizations are also funded through CDC cooperative agreements. In addition, working relationships have been developed with a wide array of professional, dental and public health organizations and centers, in order to advance improvements in children’s oral health.