A Collaborative Approach to Collecting Data on Children’s Oral Health and Weight Status, Georgia, 2005

Throughout life, maintaining good oral health and a healthful weight are important factors in ensuring a good quality of life and limiting risk for disease. However, in Georgia, surveillance systems have done little to monitor the oral health and weight status of children. To fill this gap in surveillance data, Georgia’s dental health staff and the nutrition and physical activity staff collaborated to screen third-grade children for height, weight, and dental health. To do so, we added height and weight measurements to the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors’ (ASTDD’s) basic screening protocol and used the adapted protocol for the 2005 Georgia Third Grade Survey. The Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health, collaborated with the ASTDD to modify the screening protocol. To use their funds as efficiently as possible, two state programs joined forces to collect data, although each program had a different outcome of interest. This joint data collection effort was a significant step in planning public health programs to address poor oral health and obesity among children in Georgia efficiently and inexpensively. Our approach is one that could also work well in other states.