§280k–3 Updating National Oral Healthcare Surveillance Activities

Summary

The Department of Health and Human Services must update the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) to include oral health. States must send a report to the Department about what they did under PRAMS no later than 5 years after March 23, 2010, and every 5 years after that. The oral health measures the Department creates must be used by all States for those reports. Money may be provided as needed to do this work. The Department must also add oral health parts to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, including tooth-level checks, and update those parts at least every 6 years. Tooth-level checks mean a dental examiner looks at each surface of every tooth, plus any other items the CDC’s Division of Oral Health adds. The Medical Expenditures Panel Survey must verify dental use, spending, and coverage by doing a look-back analysis. Funds may be provided for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 to expand the National Oral Health Surveillance System from 16 States to all 50 States, territories, and the District of Columbia, and that system must include a measure of early childhood tooth decay.