1410-11361

Idaho: This investment supports the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW) to expand the reach of its growing oral health network by developing regional, community-based networks focused on eradicating dental disease in children. Specifically, IDHW will establish a dedicated collaborative infrastructure to lead the development and implementation of a statewide oral health network, develop six regional oral health networks to build an aligned strategy around oral health, and implement the Idaho Oral Health Action Plan. There are several statewide organizations with a role in oral health, but there is currently no infrastructure bringing them together to create a unified strategy addressing oral health. IDHW will also leverage its network facilitation skills to weave the growing statewide oral health network into the chronic disease network, raising awareness of the linkages between oral health and chronic health issues. $150,800 will be used to support personnel time to oversee network development, travel and meeting expenses, the development of the regional oral health network, and contracted services including meeting facilitation and project evaluation. This proposal is aligned with Oral Health 2020 Eradicate dental disease in children of eradicating dental disease in children and the target that 75% of children reach age 5 without a cavity by 2020.