JCDA - Canadian Dental Association
JCDA - Canadian Dental Association
JCDA - Canadian Dental Association
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News<br />
& u p d a t E s<br />
Seniors’ Oral Health<br />
Emerges as Priority Issue<br />
at CDA Board Meeting<br />
The CDA Board of Directors held a planning session during its June<br />
meeting in St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, New Brunswick, to set short- and<br />
long-term directives for the <strong>Association</strong>. The newly identified strategic<br />
priorities can be summed up as “Strong Profession, United Community,<br />
Healthy Public.” Under this banner, the Board identified a streamlined list<br />
of CDA priorities and actions, and singled out issues that will take preced-<br />
ence during the future allocation of resources.<br />
A significant outcome of the meeting was identifying access to care for seniors as the key government relations issue<br />
for the coming year. As such, the Board directed CDA staff to facilitate coordinated action with corporate members and<br />
stakeholders on this issue.<br />
Seniors’ oral health was front and centre at the meeting as the Board accepted the Report on Seniors’ Oral<br />
Health Care — a document prepared by CDA’s Seniors’ Task Force under the guidance of the Committee on Clinical<br />
and Scientific Affairs. The Board noted the comprehensiveness and quality of the report and pledged to prioritize its<br />
recommendations.<br />
Among other noteworthy agenda items, the Board received the final report of the Relationships and Communications<br />
project team — one of the special project teams created by CDA in August 2007. The team’s report outlined 6 key rec-<br />
ommendations, including establishing protocols to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of CDA’s communications<br />
efforts, both internally and externally. This will occur under the direction of Mr. Claude Paul Boivin, the new CDA execu-<br />
tive director. The Board asked that one additional recommendation be added to the list, that of regularly monitoring<br />
relationships and communications in the future. a<br />
CDA Public Education Program Update: Summer Oral Health Insert<br />
CDA, in collaboration with the provincial dental associations, produced a<br />
9-page oral health insert in the summer issue of <strong>Canadian</strong> Health and Lifestyle<br />
magazine. Featuring interviews with CDA president Dr. Deborah Stymiest, as<br />
well as Dr. Joel Antel, chair of the Communications Committee of the Manitoba<br />
<strong>Dental</strong> <strong>Association</strong>, Dr. Alastair Nicoll, president of the British Columbia <strong>Dental</strong><br />
<strong>Association</strong>, and Dr. Larry Levin, president of the Ontario <strong>Dental</strong> <strong>Association</strong>,<br />
the insert focused on oral cancer, dental anxiety, the risks of oral jewelry, and<br />
the cause and prevention of tooth decay and dental erosion.<br />
<strong>Canadian</strong> Health and Lifestyle is a quarterly publication circulated across<br />
Canada to all Rexall pharmacies and high-volume health practitioner waiting<br />
rooms, including dentists and physicians, and has a readership of more than<br />
2 million.<br />
The ongoing key messages of CDA’s Public Education Program (PEP) are<br />
the promotion of the primacy and role of the dentist, the value of regular<br />
dental care, the importance of a healthy mouth for a healthy body, and the<br />
value of the CDA Seal of Recognition. Key messages on oral cancer have also<br />
been developed for 2008 and are being communicated to <strong>Canadian</strong>s through<br />
various year-round campaigns, including National Oral Health Month. TM<br />
The oral health insert can be viewed<br />
online at: www.healthandlifestyle.ca/<br />
Health/<strong>Dental</strong>/Oral_Health.aspx<br />
CDA’s PEP is also continuing the expansion of the Patient Information Brochures series to include 8 more titles<br />
scheduled for release by the end of the year. a<br />
<strong>JCDA</strong> • www.cda-adc.ca/jcda • September 2008, Vol. 74, No. 7 • 579