Search Results: MCHLine

Annotation: This state oral health plan for 2022–2027 summarizes goals of the Tennessee Department of Health related to improving the oral health of Tennessee residents. The report discusses the importance of oral health, the department's past oral-health-related accomplishments, and the department's role in providing oral health care. Also discussed are access to oral health care, oral health education and advocacy, oral disease prevention, oral health resources, and the oral health workforce. The state's Healthy Smiles Initiative is described, along with the future of oral health in Tennessee.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Advocacy, Dental caries, Dental sealants, Fluoride varnish, Health education, Oral health, Prevention, Silver diamine fluoride, State initiatives, State materials, Tennessee, Workforce

Annotation: This strategic framework for Montana presents the vision statement and core values and beliefs of the Montana Oral Health Network. Also discussed are strategic directions for the network; goals and objectives; prioritizing and sequencing implementation of strategies; monitoring progress and setbacks; and evaluation. Goals include achieving a cohesive and active oral health network of stakeholders, ensuring that oral health professionals and other health professionals understand and employ innovative and integrated care approaches, ensuring that Montanans understand the importance of oral health and use their knowledge to improve their oral health; and improving the provision of oral health care to those who are underserved.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Health education, Health education, Low income groups, Montana, Oral health, Prevention, Program evaluation, Service integration, State information

Annotation: The goal of this oral health roadmap for Wisconsin is to reduce the prevalence of oral disease and disparities in oral health status among state residents. It is intended to be used as a guide for promoting access to high-quality oral health care. The plan discusses four strategic areas: infrastructure, prevention and health promotion, access to oral health care, and workforce.

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Keywords: Access to oral health care, Health promotion, Oral health, Oral health equity, Prevention, State information, Wisconsin, Work force

Annotation: This video for consumers discusses the use of silver diamine fluoride (SDF) to treat tooth decay. It explains that SDF, unlike the traditional treatment method, is inexpensive, painless, and does not require numbing or drilling, and that non-dentists can be trained to apply it. The video also describes how tooth decay develops and its consequences and discusses the importance of good oral health and of treating decay in primary teeth. The video is available in American Sign Language, Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, Dari, English, French, Kirundi, Haitian Creole, Maay Maay, Mandarin Chinese, Nepali, Pashto, Portuguese, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tigrinya, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Costs, Non English language materials, Oral health, Prevention, Silver diamine fluoride, Spanish language materials, Treatment

Annotation: This report provides background on an initiative launched as a partnership between the American Academy of Pediatric Dentists and the Office of Head Start with the purpose of establishing dental homes for young children who may otherwise go without oral health care. The report explains the requirements of the contract, offers background on both organizations, and discusses what the initiative hopes to accomplish for infants and children enrolled in the Head Start program or Early Head Start program. It also details what the initiative will do to provide parents and Head Start staff with evidence-based information about how to help prevent tooth decay, and it describes how a national network of pediatric and general dentists will be organized under the initiative.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Collaboration, Dental caries, Head Start, Infant health, Initiatives, Low income groups, Prevention, Tooth decay, Young children

Annotation: This toolkit provides resources for providers supporting pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and families related to doula care. It includes a description of doulas as non-medical professionals providing emotional, physical, and informational support before, during, and after childbirth. The toolkit outlines documentation and service recommendation requirements for doula services to be covered by Kansas Medicaid, including the types of licensed healthcare providers who can recommend doula services and acceptable methods for providing those recommendations. It also contains links to additional resources in English and Spanish aimed at reducing maternal and infant health inequities by increasing access to doula care.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Doulas, Kansas, Medicaid, Postpartum women, Pregnant women, Resources for professionals, State initiatives

Annotation: This document provides an overview of maternal health landscape in Mississippi and outlines its vision, mission and purpose. It serves as a road map for the development, planning and implementation of prevention strategies for adverse outcomes in maternal health. This plan seeks to direct efforts to improve maternal health outcomes in Mississippi by advocating for equitable access to healthcare, promoting education and awareness about maternal health issues, supporting healthcare providers in underserved areas, and fostering collaboration among stakeholders and community organizations to address maternal health disparities.

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Keywords: Access to care, Collaboration, Health care equity, Maternal health, Plans, State MCH programs, State initiatives

Annotation: The Birth Equity Action Map is an interactive mapping tool that describes urgent actions needed by specific system actors (i.e., birth equity partners) to improve birth and racial equity, and it highlights where the system funders can use their leverage to accelerate birth equity. The tool is designed to accelerate the work of communities, coalitions, and funders in strategically assessing their efforts, identifying opportunities, and committing to specific actions to strengthen the birth equity and early childhood ecosystem.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Childbirth, Health care disparities, Health care systems, Health equity, Interactive media, Maps, Maternal health, Perinatal care

Annotation: This issue brief provides recommendations to address barriers to accessing oral health care for children and pregnant women in New York. It describes New York's Maternal and Child Health–Improving Oral Health Integration initiative, which focuses on pregnant women and children from birth to age 40 months living in communities underserved by oral health care. Recommendations include increasing Medicaid reimbursement for oral health care provided in medical settings, adding reimbursement for a preventive care bundle for oral health professionals and for fluoride varnish applications for pregnant women, allowing medical assistants to apply fluoride varnish, and authorizing dental therapy.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Infant health, Low income groups, Medicaid, New York, State programs, Oral health, Pregnant women, Prevention, Reimbursement, Young children

Annotation: This brief offers lessons from six states on how federal Medicaid cuts result in reductions in access to oral health care for people with low incomes. Examples are provided about how cuts have restricted access to care, shifted costs from one part of the health care system to others (e.g, hospital emergency departments), and led oral health professionals to leave the Medicaid network. Information is presented on how cuts have affected California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

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Keywords: Access to health care, California, Costs, Low income groups, Maryland, Massachusetts, Medicaid, Missouri, Oral health, Oregon, Pennsylvania, State information

Annotation: This report provides a description of perinatal oral health, including its significance and background, barriers to accessing oral health care for this population, and a strategic framework for improving perinatal oral health. It also includes guidelines and recommendations, research evidence, and state practice examples. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]

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Keywords: Access to health care, Barriers, Infant health, Initiatives, Oral health, Perinatal health, Pregnant women

Annotation: This compendium presents programs designed to improve access to oral health care in rural communities and shares best practices on providing oral health care in these communities. Selected topic areas include integrating oral health into rural prenatal health to improve neonatal and maternal outcomes, integrating oral health care to improve health, school-based oral health, and teledentistry. Each topic area highlights specific programs and provides information on the program purpose, a program summary, and information on the program’s efficacy and impact.

• 2025 Edition
• 2020 Edition

Keywords: Access to health care, Health care delivery, Health care utilizatoin, Oral health, Programs, Rural population, Teledentistry, Training

Annotation: This updated report offers information about oral health for women during the perinatal period and discusses problems related to women's oral health and their ability to access oral health care during this period. A strategic framework for improving perinatal oral health, based on core public health activities, is presented, and a policy statement is included.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Infant health, Oral health, Perinatal care, Pregnant women, Prevention, Public policy , Treatment

Annotation: This report provides information about the quality of oral health care for infants and children from birth through age 6 enrolled in Medicaid in New Jersey. The report includes information on the importance of oral health. Data on the oral health status of infants and children living in the state, including those enrolled in Head Start, and about receipt of oral health care among these infants and children is presented. The report also describes a "secret shopper" survey used to assess quality and provides the quality measures used, methods, and results.

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Keywords: School age children, Disease prevention, Access to heath care, Infant health, Low income groups, Medicaid, New Jersey, Oral health, Quality assurance, State information, Surveys:, Young children

Annotation: This report focuses on the Future Oral Health Workforce project, which launched in 2024 with the goal of improving oral health equity and access to oral health care in the state. The project synthesized insights from statewide studies, expert consultations, and community convenings to develop recommendations for building a more equitable and effective oral health care system in New York. This report highlights challenges related to oral health care in the state and offers strategies for improving access to care and addressing the state’s persistent workforce shortages.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Initiatives, New York, Oral health, Oral health equity, State information, State programs, Work force

Annotation: This article from Grantmakers In Health (GIH) describes a collaborative effort by funders to address gaps in postpartum care following the extension of Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth. The piece discusses how a workgroup of funders—including Pritzker Children's Initiative, Merck for Mothers, and Community Health Acceleration Partnership—formed in 2023 to identify opportunities for improving postpartum care systems. The article includes a visual diagram that illustrates the multi-layered challenges in postpartum care on three levels: individual, community, and system. This concentric circle diagram shows how issues such as standards of care, access to quality care, care fragmentation, and policy misalignment (at the system level) interact with community-level challenges like administrative burden and workforce shortages, as well as individual-level factors including awareness of needs, social and economic barriers, and fear of medical debt. Through stakeholder interviews, the workgroup discovered significant fragmentation of services and the absence of comprehensive care standards beyond the traditional six-week postpartum period. In response, the funders issued a request for proposals aimed at creating a centralized hub to catalog and connect postpartum care initiatives, with the goal of developing comprehensive standards and addressing what they term the "postpartum cliff."

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Keywords: Access to healthcare, Barriers, Collaboration, Funding, Health care reform, Library collection development, Medicaid, Policy, Postpartum care, Requests for proposals, Service delivery systems, Standards

Annotation: This brief provides information on expanding the role of dental hygienists in New York to improve access to oral health care in the state. Topics include the role of dental hygienists in providing oral health care, expanding the types of care that dental hygienists can provide, and policy recommendations.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Dental hygienists, New York, Oral health, Policy development, State information

Annotation: This brief provides information on expanding access to oral health care in New York. It discusses challenges to accessing oral health care among young children, uninsured children, children living in poverty, non-Hispanic black children, children from non-English-speaking households, and children with special health care needs. It addresses structural inequities that create barriers to achieving good oral health and pregnant women’s difficulties with accessing oral health care, in spite of the fact that they are at high risk for oral health problems. Policy recommendations are included.

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Keywords: Access to care, Children with special health care needs, High risk groups, New York, Oral health, Poverty, Pregnant women, Racial factors, State information, Uninsured persons, Young children

Annotation: This fact sheet presents information about the importance of dental hygiene scope of practice (SOP). It explains what professional and legal dental hygiene SOP are and describes the benefits of a broad state dental hygiene SOP, including (1) dental hygienists being able to practice to the full extent of their training and (2) the enhancement of oral health care, especially in underserved areas.

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Keywords: Access to care, Dental hygienists, Low income groups, Oral health, State legislation, Underserved communities

Annotation: These proceedings present information from a workshop convened to explore innovative practices and models for advancing oral health across the lifespan. Topics include a global perspective on improving oral health, an overview of U.S. federal oral health policies and programs, an overview of U.S. state-level oral health policies, supporting all people to improve their oral health, increasing access to oral health care, the role of public and private payers in improving access to and affordability of oral health care, oral health care for varying populations, dentistry in 2035, enhancing oral health research and innovation, and the potential for systems transformation.

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Keywords: Access to health care, Costs, Dentistry, Health systems, Oral health, Policy, Research, World health