The Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicator, “Increase the proportion of children, adolescents, and adults who used the oral health care system in the past year,” can be achieved more effectively and efficiently through collaborative strategies by public health and health care organizations. With funding from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Foundation (PHF) led an effort to develop a driver diagram to help public health and health care organizations work together to increase the use of oral health care. A population health driver diagram can be used collaboratively by public health, health care, and other partners to identify the potential primary and secondary drivers that can help to achieve an identified community health objective.
Activities of the Oral Health Care Advisory Group
About the Use of Driver Diagrams
PHF has successfully used this approach before, having developed and piloted the
Public Health Antibiotic Stewardship Driver Diagram, which outlines primary and secondary drivers of optimal antibiotic use. Among the pilot sites testing the driver diagram, an important accomplishment was greater collaboration between public health and health care, which improved the processes and protocols used by stakeholders to improve the use of antibiotics in the community. PHF looks forward to applying this interdisciplinary framework to improve use of oral health care services.