Helpful Organizations and Websites

Federal Agencies

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) works to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans by providing for effective health and human services and fostering advances in medicine, public health, and social services.

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
    The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality strives to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable and to work within DHHS and with other partners to ensure that the evidence is understood and used.
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) works to combat disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.
    • Division of Oral Health
      CDC's Division of Oral Health works to improve oral health and reduce oral health disparities by helping states improve their oral health programs, extending the use of proven strategies to prevent oral disease, enhancing efforts to monitor oral disease, contributing to the scientific knowledge base related to oral health and oral disease, and guiding infection control in dentistry.
    • Gateway to Health Communication and Social Marketing
      CDC's Gateway to Communication and Social Marketing Practice provides resources to help build health communication or social marketing campaigns and programs. The gateway offers tips for analyzing and segmenting an audience, choosing appropriate channels and tools, and evaluating the success of messages or campaigns.
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
    The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administers Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace. CMS services are tasked with modernizing the nation's health care system while providing high-quality care at a low cost. CMS strives to ensure a high-quality health care system, improve access to coverage, and contribute to good health for all Americans.
  • Health Resources and Services Administration
    • Bureau of Primary Health Care
      The Bureau of Primary Health Care funds health centers in underserved communities with the goal of providing access to high-quality, family-oriented, comprehensive primary and preventive health care for people who have low incomes, are uninsured, or face other obstacles to obtaining health care.
    • Maternal and Child Health Bureau
      The Maternal and Child Health Bureau provides leadership, in partnership with stakeholders, to improve the physical, mental, and oral health; safety; and well-being of the MCH population.
  • Office of Adolescent Health
    The Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of adolescents to enable them to become healthy, productive adults. OAH supports and evaluates evidence-based adolescent pregnancy prevention programs and implements the Pregnancy Assistance Fund; coordinates DHHS efforts related to adolescent health promotion and disease prevention; and communicates adolescent health information to health professionals and groups, those who serve adolescents, parents, grantees, and the general public.
  • Office of Minority Health
    The Office of Minority Health is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities. The office supports the development and implementation of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that address disparities and equity, leads the implementation of the DHHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, and coordinates the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities and the National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity.

Interprofessional Education Organizations

Interprofessional Education Collaborative
The Interprofessional Education Collaborative promotes and encourages constituent efforts that advance substantive interprofessional learning experiences to help prepare future health professionals for enhanced team-based care and improved population health outcomes.

National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education
The National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education provides leadership, evidence, and resources related to the use of interprofessional education and collaborative practice as a way to enhance the experience of health care, improve population health, and reduce the overall cost of care. The center gathers, synthesizes, aggregates, and disseminates information, knowledge, and evidence about the effectiveness of interprofessional practice and education on health outcomes and its potential to transform health care and health professions education in the United States and beyond.

National Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health
The National Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health (NIIOH) is a consortium of funders and health professionals whose vision is that dental disease can be eradicated. NIIOH's mission is to engage primary care health professionals to be alert to their patients' oral health needs, ready and willing to deliver preventive oral health services to individuals of all ages, effective at partnering with dental specialists, and able to learn from, with, and about each other.

Policy and Resource Centers

National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine)
Through its domestic and global initiatives, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) works to address critical issues in health, medicine, and related policy and to inspire positive action. The NAM collaborates closely with its peer academies and other divisions within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
The National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center responds to the needs of professionals working in states and communities with the goal of improving oral health services for pregnant women, infants, children, and adolescents, including those with special health care needs, and their families (MCH population). The resource center collaborates with government agencies, professional associations, foundations, policy and research centers, and voluntary organizations to gather, develop, and share information and materials to promote sustainable oral health services for the MCH population.

SAMSHA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions
SAMSHA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions (CIHS) promotes the development of integrated primary and behavioral health services to address the needs of individuals with mental health and substance use conditions, whether they are seen in behavioral health or primary care settings. CIHS provides training and technical assistance to community behavioral health organizations, community health centers, and other primary care and behavioral health organizations.

Practice Management Organizations

DentaQuest Institute
The DentaQuest Institute promotes optimal oral health through efficient and effective care and prevention. The institute provides clinical care and practice-management solutions that help oral health professionals improve oral health.

Qualis Health
Qualis Health works with public and private sector clients to advance the quality, efficiency, and value of health care.

Professional Membership Organizations—Oral Health

American Dental Association
The American Dental Association provides oral health information to dentists and consumers and works to advance the dental profession at the national, state, and local levels.

American Dental Hygienists' Association
The American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA) works to ensure access to high-quality oral health care; promote dental hygiene education, licensure, practice, and research; and represent the legislative interests of dental hygienists at the local, state, and federal levels. ADHA serves dental hygienists with the goal of helping them achieve their full potential as they seek to improve the public's oral health.

National Network for Oral Health Access
The National Network for Oral Health Access provides oral health professionals working in safety net programs with resources, learning opportunities, and advocacy with the goal of improving the oral health and overall health of populations that are underserved.

Professional Membership Organizations—Non-Oral Health

American Academy of Pediatrics
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) works to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP supports the professional needs of its members.

American Hospital Association
The American Hospital Association (AHA) promotes high-quality health care provision by hospitals and health care networks through public policy and by providing information about health care and health administration to health professionals and the public.

American Nurses Association
The American Nurses Association strives to advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting a safe and ethical work environment, bolstering nurses' health and wellness, and advocating on health care issues that affect nurses and the public.

National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) is dedicated to improving the quality of health care for infants, children and adolescents and to advancing pediatric-focused advanced practice registered nurses' role in providing that care. NAPNAP provides its members with education, leadership, networking, and research opportunities; advocates for members to be able to practice to the fullest extent of their education, license, and certification and for comprehensive, high-quality health care for children; and develops and distributes information and educational materials to parents and families relevant to promoting, maintaining, and/or restoring optimal health for children.

Quality Improvement Organizations and Initiatives

Institute for Healthcare Improvement
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) aims to improve health and health care throughout the world for all people. IHI created Triple Aim, a framework for optimizing health system performance by simultaneously focusing on the health of a population, the experience of care for individuals within that population, and the per capita cost of providing that care.

National Quality Forum
The National Quality Forum (NQF) seeks to lead national collaboration to improve health and health care quality through measurement. NQF convenes public- and private-sector leaders to establish national priorities and goals to achieve health care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable and works to ensure that NQF-endorsed standards are the primary standards used to measure and report on the quality and efficiency of health care in the United States.

School-Based Health Organizations

Center for Health and Health Care in Schools
The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools works with institutional leaders, state officials, and health professionals to strengthen children's and adolescents' well-being through health programs and health care services in schools.

National Association of School Nurses
The National Association of School Nurses (NASN) serves school nurses by developing educational programs, resources, and research and by working to influence stakeholders' support for school nursing through advocacy. NASN supports school nurse objectives by publishing

School-Based Health Alliance
The School-Based Health Alliance (SBHA) works to improve the health status of children and adolescents by advocating for school-based health care. SBHA supports the field of school-based health care with common standards, measures, data, and research to effectively demonstrate the value of school-based health care. SBHA engages members in experiential and collaborative learning to lead, test, and spread innovations in the field; help children and adolescents take ownership of their health; and advocate at the federal, state, and local levels for the concept of health and education partnerships—and the school-based health center model in particular—to help students succeed.