Smile Spokane Impact Report Released

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Smile Spokane is a Local Impact Network (LIN) of organizations working together to transform oral health in the region. It serves as an organizing entity with strategies in place to improve oral health in Spokane.

Established in 2017, the vision of Smile Spokane is to implement a comprehensive set of strategies working toward the common goal of reducing health disparities in Spokane County. The goal is to make measurable progress toward oral health equity by working to transform the oral health system in the region so everyone can enjoy better oral and overall health.

There are many organizational partners in the LIN, and each partner is attached to a key anchor strategy, spanning focus areas of prevention, access to care, and system transformation. At the time of writing, there were 19 LIN partners implementing six anchor strategies:

  • Access.

  • Medical-Dental Integration.

  • Care Coordination.

  • Care Linkages.

  • Community Education.

  • Sealants.

    The LIN is supported by Better Health Together (BHT) as the Network Manager.

The purpose of this impact evaluation is to identify outcomes achieved by Smile Spokane as a Local Impact Network. These outcomes are defined as changes in actions, relationships, policies, and practices of one or more social actors influenced by the intervention. It was decided by Arcora and BHT in early 2022 that an impact evaluation of Smile Spokane would be a high value complement to the evaluative data and analysis already captured about the anchor strategies by the ongoing work of the LIN’s dedicated evaluator. The evaluator focuses primarily on the programmatic work of the anchor strategies whereas this impact evaluation is meant to identify achievements that can be attributed to the LIN as a network and organizing entity.

This evaluation was funded by Arcora Foundation as a key financial supporter of Smile Spokane. The evaluation was completed by Kerstin Tebbe of Collective Mind.

Note on terminology: Smile Spokane is referred to as “the LIN” or “the network” in the text below. The participants in Smile Spokane are referred to interchangeably as “partners” and as “members” of the LIN.