Development of a statewide oral health infrastructure for planning and plans: Role of participatory stakeholder evaluation

The need to conduct assessment and outreach activities, improve infrastructure, mobilize stakeholders, form partnerships and develop a state oral health plan have been recognized as best practice strategies for population oral health improvement. The impact of these activities can only be gauged through the implementation of an evaluation process which is comprehensive and continual and provides opportunities for feedback to oral health leadership and stakeholders. The Illinois oral health infrastructure and state oral health plan development processes have incorporated evaluation activities from their inception based the Framework for Evaluation of Public Health Programs developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three major activities, a series of stakeholder forums, distribution of a survey and evaluator participant observation, provided opportunities for statewide contribution to the development the second state oral health plan in Illinois. Evaluation data from each activity provided the oral health leadership and stakeholders with information from a variety of sectors and several sets of recommendations that helped to create an improved second statewide oral health plan. Dissemination of the process measures and outcomes from the evaluations provide additional opportunities for input, maintain an active feedback process, and result in improved strategies for implementation. This approach has led to improved processes and outcomes in Illinois with regard to the development of its next oral health plan and a more reliable roadmap to guide similar initiatives in other states.