May 10, 2019
By Fransisca Meralus, Oral Health Coordinator

The Florida Institute for Health Innovation has partnered with several organizations including Catalyst Miami to produce a consumer report based on oral health. The purpose of the report is to serve as a tool to guide the mission of any organization or state agency working to understand or improve oral health services and delivery in the state of Florida. This report is just one of the many oral health initiatives that Catalyst Miami has helped to develop. Over the past years, Catalyst Miami has conducted oral health surveys at numerous local community events to gather data on consumers’ access to oral health services, oral health status, and perceived barriers to care. The report will release soon.

The Oral Health 2014 Consumer Engagement Initiative was designed in 2013 to better understand Florida’s oral health status. Surveys and focus groups were conducted to identify different barriers to health care. With the support of the DentaQuest Partnership for Oral Health Advancement, the data collection from surveys and focus groups expanded statewide.

The DentaQuest Partnership for Oral Health Advancement invested $6.1 million dollars in oral health initiatives during the first quarter of 2019.

The first quarter grants include investments in the following areas:

• Emphasizing the importance of oral health to overall health;
• Integrating oral health into person-centered health care, by focusing on the adoption of health care models that improve outcomes and reduce costs;
• Including an adult dental benefit in publicly funded health coverage;
• Eradicating dental disease in children and;
• Incorporating oral health into the primary education system.

Achieving these different areas will lead to systems change, which is the big result Catalyst Miami wishes to see within access to oral health care.

For more information about the following investment, read more here.