1602-11929

Arizona: Continued support to Asian Pacific Community in Action (APCA) to act as a lead convener in the Maricopa County (great Phoenix) community as part of the Grassroots Engagement Strategy. With a focus on providing services, advocacy, and education for diverse communities in Maricopa County, APCA works through community based partnerships to facilitate a multi-stakeholder network supporting improved health for Asian Pacific families across greater Phoenix. Year one’s primary achievement was the breadth and richness of data collected by Asian Pacific Community in Action (APCA) and their six core group partner organizations through the oral health landscape assessment process. Conducting the assessments not only evolved the core group’s knowledge of the existing oral health landscape, it also strengthened the relationships among the Core Group and brought the Health Equity Roundtable (HER), which served as the Planning Team, much closer to achieving its own established goals. Altogether, the core group collected 540 community surveys, which resulted in the Quantitative Evaluation Report (see proposal attachment) that helped APCA understand the attitudes, values, and perceptions that exist around oral health in greater Phoenix. The Oral Health Qualitative Assessment involved 12 focus groups, which included over 70 community participants, and 6 key informant interviews. 96 community members participated in preventive education oral health knowledge pre and post-tests. Oral Health 2020 investment of $100,000 will be used in year two to center APCA’s work on community members who are interested in leading the local oral health movement. The effort will start by educating residents through an oral health equity training to see the systemic impacts of oral health on community, and then focus on bringing community members into the work and centering their needs and expertise within the oral health priorities planning process. APCA will seek to collaborate with other agencies and organizational partners that are active within oral health and health equity, working to integrate across the grasstops, grassmiddles, and grassroots. This investment aligns with the Oral Health 2020 goal to improve the public perception of the value of oral health to overall health.