Abstract
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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 116-123 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Public Health Dentistry |
| Volume | 79 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 American Association of Public Health Dentistry
Funding
Under the supervision of the Columbia University Medical Center Institutional Review Board (Protocol AAAN1708), a multi-pronged approach was employed to identify as many community-based ECC prevention and management programs as possible. Online searches using terms “early childhood caries program,” “early childhood caries management,” and “caries management program” were performed on PubMed, NIH RePORTer, Google, DrBicuspid.com, and the websites of organizations including the American Dental Association (ADA), American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, and the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD). In addition, key documents including ASTDD’s 2013 State Synopses of Dental Public Health Programs and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ monthly oral health newsletter were reviewed. Inquiries were made to known funders of ECC initiatives including the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the National Dental Association Foundation, the Center for Oral Health and to awardees (e.g., Centers for Research to Reduce Disparities in Oral Health funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, grantees of the ADA Foundation’s Samuel D. Harris Fund for Children’s Dental Health). The resulting organizations, programs, and key informants were emailed and/or telephoned and a list of programs and program contacts was compiled. Finally, solicitations for additional ECC programs were emailed to all program contacts. These endeavors were continued until the appearance of saturation was reached with more than one source identifying the same program or programs. A total of 155 unique programs were identified.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- General Dentistry
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
