dqf201904

This investment supports the Arizona American Indian Oral Health Initiative (AAIOHI), which is facilitated in collaboration with local tribes and the Arizona Dental Foundation, to strengthen and build the network of stakeholders in Arizona working to elevate and sustain oral health as a top 5 priority among American Indian tribes, eliminate dental disease among children in this population, and ensure regional and national oral health measurement systems appropriately include American Indian people. Through this work, AAIOHI will structure interdisciplinary, collaborative, community-based projects that have the potential to leverage and mobilize the resources and capacity of multiple tribal, state, and federal programs throughout Arizona. Children in American Indian populations are disproportionately impacted by oral disease and most community-based education and prevention programs at the tribal, state, and federal levels intersect ECC target populations. Focusing on this issue will allow AAIOHI to create opportunities for increasing collaboration among these groups around a specific topic: reducing ECC among American Indian children. $150,000 will support personnel, office supplies, communication materials, travel, and meeting expenses towards the implementation of the work. This proposal aligns with the Oral Health 2020 Goal 4 of eradicating dental disease in children and the target of having 75% of children reach age 5 without a cavity.