Oral health 2014; Advancing local leaders for national impact

Oral Health 2014 is a multi-year, strategic initiative of the DentaQuest Foundation to build leadership capacity and support for state and local collaboration to improve oral health in eighteen states. Through the initiative, state based collaborative alliances chose one or two oral health improvement priorities from a group of six priority areas on which to focus their activities. Oral Health 2014 is a blended model of grant support and active partnership engagement of grantees with a funder. Grantee partners of the initiative also interact with other statewide grantees to maintain alignment among priorities and shared support for solutions, through scheduled convenings and a web based social network. The current expanded awareness of the importance of oral health and prevention coupled with rapid changes in the healthcare delivery environment necessitate urgency to develop a national movement of leaders to improve oral health through collective impact of engaged stakeholders. Oral Health 2014 strengthens and accelerates community-driven action by providing financial resources to increase local collaborations on behalf of better oral health and technical training and resources to develop content knowledge and facilitative leadership capacity among the grantee partners. This presentation will describe the implementation process and early outcomes of the initiative through the experience of two of the state grantees, including the impact of collective engagement and technical resources on their ability to engage and lead a sustainable collaborative infrastructure.