Child Health: Application Plan

FY 2024 Plan for Application Year

Idaho intends to continue with the same priorities, strategies, ESMs, NPMs, and SPM that were identified in the Annual Report section for the Child Health domain.

The MCH Program will continue to fund strategies to improve nutrition and decrease child obesity by partnering with the Idaho Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) Program. ESM 8.1.1 will transition from measuring the number of childcare providers trained on healthy behaviors for children to the percentage of providers that integrate physical activity into the Farm to ECE program.

Based on the 2020 Needs Assessment (NA), the MCH Program will continue the priority need of improving childhood immunization rates. The state aims to collaborate with the Idaho Immunization Program (IIP) to increase vaccination education and vaccine uptake among MCH populations and will use the state-created performance measure of the percentage of children at kindergarten enrollment who are adequately immunized to measure progress on this effort (SPM 2).

Idaho also identified oral health and dental care as a top health need during the 2020 NA. To address this, the strategy to fund the Idaho Oral Health Program (IOHP) to provide dental sealants, apply fluoride varnish, offer oral health education, and refer elementary school students to dental homes will continue through September 2025. The objective will be to increase the percentage of school-age children who receive preventive dental care, which will be measured by the percentage of 3rd grade students that have dental sealants on at least one tooth recommended for sealants (ESM 13.2). These strategies are explained in more detail below.

Childhood Physical Activity and Nutrition

The MCH Program and IPAN will continue to meet quarterly to discuss opportunities to collaborate on childhood obesity interventions with a focus on children in childcare and after-school settings. In FY 2024, IPAN will continue to focus on Farm to ECE and training childcare providers to engage with their local food systems to address nutrition and food scarcity within communities. IPAN has identified the IdahoSTARS Program to help expand and sustainably grow the Farm to ECE program after extensive conversations with external partners that work with childcare centers. Updated training materials will be developed, and UI-Extension will begin training IdahoSTARS Health Consultants to distribute Farm to ECE training to childcare centers. These joint efforts also align with IPAN’s internal goals and initiatives.

In FY 2024, IPAN would like to establish Go NAPSACC (Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care) training in Idaho. This will bring evidence-based training and Idaho-specific tailored technical assistance to childcare providers in collaboration with IdahoSTARS. Go NAPSACC focuses on improving the health of young children through practices, policies, and environments that instill habits supporting lifelong health and well-being. Training and technical assistance will focus on healthy eating, active living, and oral health.

Immunizations

In FY 2024, the IIP will focus on routine childhood vaccination while continuing to oversee and administer the federal COVID-19 vaccination program. The IIP aims to continue the expansion of its network to provide education, address vaccine hesitancy, and encourage a larger return to routine vaccinations.

To improve provider education and address vaccine hesitancy, the IIP will provide statewide workshops and conferences, and continued Quality Improvement for Providers (IQIP) visits. IQIP is a quality improvement activity targeted to immunization providers throughout the state. IQIP promotes and supports the implementation of provider-level strategies designed to help increase the on-time vaccination of children and adolescents.

The IIP will continue to support the purchase and distribution of vaccines for insured children through the Vaccine Assessment Fund and provide public education about the importance of vaccinations through immunization awareness campaigns for the public, with special emphasis on infants, expecting parents, and new parents.

The IIP program will also work to improve data collection and sharing by implementing an Idaho Data Dashboard for pediatric and adolescent immunization by January 2024. The data dashboard is intended for parents, providers, and the media to reference statewide immunization coverage levels for the primary vaccine series. There will also be a School Immunization Report module incorporated into Idaho’s immunization system by November 2023. Additionally, the IIP will implement another effort to improve data collection through the School Immunization Report module. This will be a new system in the Idaho Immunization Reminder Information System (IRIS) that will allow school users such as nurses and administrative staff to submit more quickly and accurately the annually required School Immunization Report. Implementation of this new system will increase the accuracy of data and ease the reporting process.

Lastly, the IIP is striving to improve engagement with American Indian and Alaska Natives by hosting a Statewide Tribal Immunization Summit tailored to the Tribal Health Clinics enrolled in the Vaccines for Children Program. The Summit will provide an opportunity to discuss vaccination rates, successes and challenges in vaccinating tribal populations, and forward planning for the next year.

Pediatric Oral Health

The IOHP will continue to subgrant with the seven PHDs in Idaho to provide direct clinical services through fluoride varnish clinics and school-based sealant clinics, along with oral health education to children, adolescents, and pregnant women. The subgrants include the delivery of oral health screenings or assessments and fluoride varnish applications to children with a specific focus on ages 0-5. Fluoride varnish programs will be provided at an array of locations such as WIC clinics, Head Start locations, childcare centers, and elementary schools. For children ages 6 through 11, the IOHP will subgrant with the PHDs to deliver school-based dental sealant programs, which include the delivery of oral health screenings, fluoride varnish applications, and dental sealants as needed.

In FY 2024, the IOHP will distribute the updated pregnant women educational materials in both English and Spanish, along with bags containing recently acquired washcloths, toothbrushes, floss, timers, and toothpaste to each PHD. The PHDs will then pass these resources along to expectant mothers throughout the state where they deliver health education.

Additional activities in FY 2024 will include continuing to work collaboratively with the IOHA, Idaho State Dental Association (ISDA), Idaho Dental Hygienist’s Association (IDHA), and the Idaho Community Health Center Association (ICHCA) previously known as the Idaho Primary Care Association (IPCA) to support the exploration and expansion of the utilization of Medicaid for oral health services. One area of focus will be to increase the number of providers accepting new patients on Medicaid, especially children and pregnant mothers.

The IOHP will work with partners in planning the next third-grade oral health basic screening survey (Smile Survey) which is scheduled for the 2023-2024 school year. The Idaho Smile Survey is anticipated to be completed by August 31, 2024.

Additionally, the IOHP will continue to participate in national efforts, including the Association for State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD) committees, and will utilize existing national relationships with other oral health programs and statewide partnerships. The IOHP remains committed to sharing best practice models and evidence-based strategies for providing population-specific oral health prevention and education efforts with all subrecipients and those interested in improving oral health statewide.