Mendocino County’s Department of Public Health received state funding to increase oral health programming throughout the county. One requirement of that funding was to develop and implement an evaluation plan to monitor and measure this work.
Mendocino County partnered with VIVA to create a local oral health community improvement plan. VIVA started our support of evaluation efforts by facilitating meetings with the Oral Health Program Coordinator and Advisory Committee to align on key evaluation goals, indicators, and targets, and conducting a comprehensive oral health needs assessment. VIVA developed an interactive Google Map that allows stakeholders to see the distribution of oral health facilities across the county at a glance and use this tool to inform policies and investments that support the oral health of the county.
VIVA then wrote a detailed, three-year evaluation plan for measuring those indicators against the targets and answering the key evaluation questions. Following this planning phase, VIVA has led the implementation of the evaluation plan, supporting data collection, conducting analysis, and producing summaries of findings.
Specific evaluation activities have included developing data collection tools, such as forms to capture the clinic and school-based services offered in the county, and developing a partner survey to capture the level of coordination between oral health partners and partner needs.
VIVA has also worked closely with the Program Coordinator to access other relevant data available publicly or through county offices, such as Kindergarten Oral Health Assessment data and the county’s records of oral health-related Emergency Room visits. VIVA cleaned and analyzed all data collected and presented the Year 1 evaluation findings to the Oral Health Advisory Committee. The presentation included a facilitated discussion about how to leverage the findings to strengthen oral health programming in the county, and how to refine evaluation activities going forward to best match the group’s evaluation goals.
VIVA is continuing to work with the Oral Health Program and the Mendocino County Oral Health Advisory Committee to implement its action plan and evaluate the success of its efforts.
Key activities of this partnership:
- Needs Assessment
- Evaluation Plan
- Data Collection
- Data Analysis
- Evaluation Findings Report
- Facilitation
- Stakeholder Survey
- Strategic Support