The Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD) has developed a resource of immeasurable utility to everyone with responsibility for improving the nation's oral health. The ASTDD Best Practices Project provides detailed information on promising and proven practices that can benefit individuals and communities alike across the country. The project promotes initiatives that will build infrastructure and capacity for oral health programs, meet the Surgeon General's Call to Action to improve the oral health of Americans, and help achieve Healthy People 2010 oral health objectives.
The Surgeon General's Call to Action to improve the oral health of Americans asks for more efforts to translate science into public health action. Scientific evidence helps to identify which public health interventions are the most effective and most feasible, for which specific populations, and in which settings. Putting evidence into practice facilitates the development of best practices that are effective, efficient and sustainable.
To support the call for translating science into action, the ASTDD Best Practices Project analyzed evidence supporting the effectiveness of dental public health strategies reported as successful by the states. The review of evidence included research, expert opinion, field lessons and theoretical rationale. Of the analyses for eight dental public health strategies reported as successful by the states, the strength of evidence was the strongest for (1) community water fluoridation and (2) school-based dental sealant programs.
A survey of state dental public health professionals recently found that 95% of respondents found the best practices information developed by the ASTDD Best Practices Project to be a valuable resource. Visit the ASTDD Web site (www.astdd.org) to view the Best Practice Approach Reports and State & Community Practice Examples.
