Developing, Integrating, Expanding, or Enhancing Community Oral Health Programs, Step by Step

The Guide walks readers through the steps needed to develop, integrate, expand, or enhance community oral health programs. These steps are as follows:

Step 1. Mobilize Community Support. Partners and “champions” are important to the success of newly developed, integrated, enhanced, or expanded community oral health programs. This section describes how to identify and mobilize these partners and champions.

Step 2. Assess Needs and Resources. To determine how to improve oral health within a community, it is important to obtain a thorough, evidence-based understanding of the community and its current health and oral health needs and existing resources. This section describes how to assess needs and resources.

Step 3. Determine Priorities and Plan the Program. This section reviews how to determine priorities and plan program development, integration, enhancement, or expansion using findings from the assessment of needs and resources.

Step 4. Implement the Program. Programs comprise specific components or activities, each linked to a specific outcome. This section focuses on implementing these components or activities.

Step 5. Evaluate the Program. An effective evaluation accomplishes several important tasks, including measuring the scope and level of a program’s success. This section explores the evaluation process.

Step 6. Participate in Policy Development and Research. Oral health stakeholders can provide expert guidance in the areas of policy development and research. This section describes how these stakeholders can play a role in policy and research activities.