Strategies for State Oral Health Program Workforce Capacity Development

Oral health and public health infrastructure enables state and local public health agencies to perform their core functions and essential services.  An approach that incorporates professionals from multiple disciplines is needed to attain all of the skill sets and workforce hours required to provide these services and functions to promote oral health. ASTDD has developed a new Best Practice Approach Report, “State Oral Health Program Workforce Capacity Development,” that has been reviewed and rated using the ASTDD Best Practice criteria. This session will highlight issues from that report affecting state oral health programs’ ability to improve oral health through workforce capacity development such as education and career opportunities, leadership, staffing, and funding. Potential strategies that build on research from other areas of public health to strengthen the workforce in state and local oral health programs in terms of workforce enumeration and forecasting; competency enhancement and life-long learning; recruitment, retention and succession planning; infrastructure changes; resource sharing and collaborative partnerships will be discussed. Successful state examples will be shared. The speakers and reactors will pose questions to the audience to stimulate discussion during the session and challenge organizations and individuals to take action on some of the strategies.