G-1812-14631

The purpose of this grant is to support the Los Angeles Trust for Children’s Health (LA Trust) to continue to examine the key factors in integrating oral health into public schools by engaging in a school policy change strategy and strengthening the capacity of schools to build and leverage data in order to inform strategic decisions in implementing oral health integration. This builds on the work of previous years to examine the circumstances, barriers, and opportunities within a variety of models for integrating oral health in schools. In 2019, this project will complete and implement an inaugural data download from their Data Xchange, much of which has gotten launched in 2018. As well in 2019, this project will not just continue to implement the model of school oral health (education, screening, and referral) it will seek to engage in a change strategy looking at addressing some of the policy and process barriers to more effectively and sustainably implementing this model. Specifically, this includes researching and designing a public policy strategy focused on changing the oral health consent from “opt-out” to “opt-in”, getting the school system to align their “opt-in” process with the new school year registration documents, and working with LAUSD to develop process and performance measures to enhance data collection at each of the oral health care delivery sites. This project aligns with the OH2020 goal of incorporating oral health into the primary education system and eradicating dental disease in children. The budget for this project is $125,800. One-third of the budget goes to staff time and there are significant contracts to pay for the build out of the Data Xchange platform and for a contract evaluator.