Friday, May 30, 2025
5/30/2025
Louisiana's Promotion of Strategies to Advance Oral Health - PROJECT ABSTRACT: A. Objective: Well-Ahead Louisiana’s (WAL) project proposal addresses the need for development and implementation of statewide strategies and activities to improve and promote evidence-based oral health practices. B. Project Proposal: WAL proposes promotion of oral health through evidence-based preventive dental services (EBPDS), increased access to optimally fluoridated water, increased awareness of infection prevention, and improved oral health and chronic disease surveillance using secondary data sources to describe oral health trends. WAL will address oral health disparities and the disproportionate impact of diabetes across Louisiana. WAL will develop and maintain an oral health surveillance system to monitor the overall burden of oral disease l among populations of focus. Target parishes include Webster, Evangeline, Claiborne, Bienville, Madison, Concordia, Tensas, East Carroll, Franklin. The goal of selecting priority parishes is to focus on improving and promoting evidence-based oral health practices. Priority parishes were selected using individual parish scores based on parish dentist visit rates, rate of all teeth lost among adults >65 years old, and if the parish is a dental Health Professional Shortage Area. C. Purpose: WAL will use Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) State Promotion of Strategies to Advance Oral Health to expand the work of WAL Oral Health Promotion Program (WAL-OHP). WAL will promote health equity and address health disparities throughout Louisiana. WAL will establish key partnerships to promote evidence-based oral health practices. D. Outcomes: During the three-year funding period, WAL intends to achieve the following outcomes: 1) increased receipt of and access to fluoridation data, especially among water systems serving 10,000 people or less, 2) increased dissemination of analyzed secondary data about relationships between oral of people living with diabetes, their overall health, as well as their use of and access to medical and dental care, 3) increased availability of and access to local/small area and state program data, evidence-based preventive dental services (EBPDS) programs, and information about Medicaid/CHIP-enrolled children receiving EBPDS, 4) increased awareness and use of dental infection prevention and control (IPC) recommendations and resources, especially among EBPDS school programs, and other dental programs or facilities serving communities with oral health disparities. E. Evaluation: WAL will fund 0.25 FTE for the Oral Health Program Evaluator. The Epidemiologist will be an in-kind contribution of 0.5 FTE. The current evaluation plan includes a process, outcomes, and impact evaluation. WAL will incorporate process and outcome evaluation into comprehensive annual evaluation plans to monitor and evaluate program activities and outcomes. Additionally, evaluation findings will be used to inform future program activities. WAL Surveillance and Evaluation Team (WAL-SE) will work with CDC to refine performance measures and submit a performance measurement plan six months after awarded. F. Key Personnel: Key personnel from WAL include the Principal Investigator (Director of WAL), Oral Health Program Manager, Evidence-Based Preventive Dental Services Coordinator, Epidemiologist, Evaluator, Communications Manager, Health Equity Improvement Manager, Healthy Communities Division Manager, Community Water Fluoridation Monitor 1, and Community Water Fluoridation Monitor 2.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).