A survey of US early childhood caries programs: findings and recommendations.

OBJECTIVES: To identify and characterize US early childhood caries (ECC) programs. METHODS: A 39 question online survey was fielded to 245 ECC programs identified from the literature and peer programs. The 101 respondents (41 percent response rate) reported their program's geographic reach, type, areas of focus, target populations, approaches, affiliations, providers, goals, costs, and funding. RESULTS: Half of the programs affiliate with formal early childhood social service or nutrition programs. Almost all characterize their work as risk reduction, disease suppression, or arrest. In descending order, programs describe their approaches as educating parents, addressing family-level health behaviors, utilizing pharmacological approaches with fluoride varnish or silver nitrate, delivering education to health professionals, and conducting research. A majority of programs target urban, poor, and low-income populations. Although little more than a third of programs utilize a logic model, most collect evaluation data and believe their program to be "very" or "somewhat" replicable. Programs tend to depend on multiple funding sources and be largely reliant on grants with foundations as the leading source of support followed by federal grants, state/local grants, and governmental programs such as Head Start. CONCLUSIONS: Programs demonstrate attempts at ECC prevention and management through holistic approaches predicated on behavioral theory, cariology science, and public health principles. Partnerships created by these programs provide unique opportunities to promote oral health. Various strategies could potentially leverage systemic changes in the delivery of dental care for young children.

The roles of federal legislation and evolving health care systems in promoting medical-dental collaboration.

Recent federal health care legislation contains explicit and implicit drivers for medical-dental collaboration. These laws implicitly promote health care evolution through value-based financing, "big data" and health information technology, increased number of care providers and a more holistic approach. Additional changes--practice aggregation, consumerism and population health perspectives--may also influence dental care. While dentistry will likely lag behind medicine toward value-based and accountable care organizations, dentists will be affected by changing consumer expectations.

Alternative careers in pediatric dentistry: a survey of pediatric dental residents.

Pediatric dentistry has enjoyed growing popularity in recent years, yet there remains a need for leadership in academe, research, and public health. In November 2008, the first Maternal and Child Health Bureau-sponsored regional Leadership in Pediatric Dentistry convocation was held at the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine. Seventy-two pediatric dentistry trainees from thirteen programs in the New York City area participated in interactive presentations and exercises. Of the sixty- seven participants who completed a pre-event survey, 93 percent stated they would likely or very likely pursue careers that involved, at least in part, private practice, 55 percent in care of children in Medicaid, 51 percent academics, 36 percent dental public health, and 12 percent research. Barriers related to finances, competence, or work environment/location were perceived by 83 percent for careers involving research, 73 percent for dental public health, 66 percent for providing care to children in Medicaid, 46 percent for academics, and 9 percent for private practice. Results of a pair of pre-event and post-event surveys completed by sixty-three attendees showed no change in reported likelihood to pursue a career alternative except for an increase in the likelihood of working in a practice that accepts Medicaid. The challenge before dental educators is to provide consistent and meaningful opportunities throughout training that encourage residents to consider all career options and to discover how their individual interests mesh with their clinical learning.

A competency-based framework for training in advanced dental education: experience in a community-based dental partnership program.

While goals and objectives are useful to assess programmatic outcomes, they are not able to evaluate individual trainees' performance and/or corrective actions needed to improve performance. As a result, competency-based evaluation is increasingly being used to assess trainee performance at both the doctoral and postdoctoral levels. However, the translation of broadly stated competency statements into evaluable action statements continues to pose a challenge, especially in nontechnical domains such as the assessment and integration of cultural and sociodemographic variables in the development and execution of treatment plans. This article describes a process used to develop a competency-based framework that includes specific evaluable action statements to assess the performance of Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) residents providing dental care services to medically compromised patients in a community-based partnership program. Although the resultant framework may not itself be generalizable across training programs, the process described to develop the framework can be used by those individuals involved in evaluating students and/or residents in training programs.

Conceptual frameworks for understanding system capacity in the care of people with special health care needs.

This paper seeks to (1) identify strengths and weaknesses of the US health care system regarding oral care for persons with special needs; (2) provide a framework for understanding system capacity; and (3) describe the context within which dental care is provided in the United State. It explores a series of concepts that help explain the current lack of access for those with special needs and synthesizes options for improvement.

Dental care considerations for young children.

Although the majority of America's children enjoy remarkably good oral health, a significant subset of low-income, minority, medically and developmentally compromised, and socially vulnerable children continue to suffer significant and consequential dental and oral disease. Most of this inequitably distributed disease burden is preventable through early and individualized preventive care. Yet the primary-care medical and dental workforce is ill-prepared to manage the oral health needs of young children. Demographic trends suggest that the problem of disparities in both oral health status and access to competent dental services will continue to worsen for young children. Impediments to improving the oral health of young children include barriers between medical and dental systems of care, paucity of private and safety-net facilities and providers in many areas where vulnerable children reside, and dysfunctional Medicaid insurance programs. Barriers are generated by parents, providers, payers, and systems of care as well as by the age-appropriate behaviors of young children. Vulnerable families often do not access the case management services and disease control information needed to effectively address their young children's needs. Approaches to improving the oral health of young children therefore include enhancing public education about oral health, the appropriateness of early and periodic dental care, and primary prevention. Improvements in workforce numbers, distribution, diversity, and competency are needed. Attention to delivery systems and public insurance capacities are also necessary to effectuate improvements. HRSA's Title VII and VIII health professions training programs could potentially address may of these barriers and shortcomings. Training enhancements for predoctoral, postdoctoral, and graduate dentists and hygienists as well as for primary-care medical providers hold the key to marked improvements in the oral health of young children. Enhanced training of health care providers is the necessary if not sufficient condition to children whose daily life experiences are compromised by dental and oral diseases that are overwhelmingly preventable.