Association of State and
Territorial Dental Directors
Outstanding Achievement Award
Lynn Bethel, RDH, MPH
Nominated by Julie Ellingson, RDH
Acceptance remarks – Lynn Bethel, RDH, MPH: It is an honor and privilege to accept this award. I sincerely thank the American Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD) for presenting me with this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award, the committee for selecting me, and Julie Ellingson, state dental director in South Dakota for nominating me.
We learn from each other; and I am receiving this award because I had good teachers – my family and friends, professors, colleagues from many different disciplines, and the people we serve. Each in their own way has taught me patience and strength and that nothing I envision is beyond my capacity.
I chose dental hygiene as my career with the sole goal of working in public health. Thirty-plus years later, in addition to never regretting that decision, I can honestly say the friendships that I have developed with the members of ASTDD have been my support system, during the successes and even more so, during the challenges that arise while working in dental public health. Reflecting on my experiences, I encourage each of you to become actively involved in this Association and get to know the members - the time you put in will come back to you ten-fold.
It’s a proud and humbling experience for me to receive this award; again, thank you.
Distinguished Service Award
Kathy Phipps, DrPh
Acceptance remarks – Kathy Phipps, DrPh: The year - 1993. The place - Atlanta, GA. The event - my first presentation at an ASTDD annual meeting. The result - a long and rewarding career in dental public health. I want to thank Brad Whistler for his nomination and ASTDD for honoring me with the 2015 Distinguished Service Award. Although I am the recipient of this year's award, the award really belongs to the dedicated oral health professionals and ASTDD members who work to improve the population's oral health at the state and local level. For the last 20 years I have provided guidance, while the state and local program staff have done all the work. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge two individuals who were instrumental in my career choices - Brian Burt and Delores Malvitz.
Brian made me realize that I can do anything I put my mind to and Delores taught me the essentials of public health surveillance. I would also like to thank Mike Manz, Laurie Barker and ASTDD's leadership team for all of their hard work and Stuart Lockwood, Brad Whistler and Junhie Oh for volunteering their time to chair ASTDD's Data Committee. ASTDD is a great organization and I hope to work with its members for many more years.
President’s Award
Beverly Isman, RDH, MPH, ELS
Acceptance remarks - Beverly Isman, RDH, MPH, ELS: Diane Brunson, a former ASTDD president and still a close friend, called me one day and asked me to help ASTDD write a CDC grant because Dean Perkins was on a fishing trip. Who knew that 15 years later we would have successfully competed for multiple CDC grants, that I’d still be applying for and managing those grants, and that Dean may still be going fishing but is more apt to be going on a cruise. ASTDD has developed a brilliant business model that taps into the best expertise that many of us have to offer in a highly productive, effective and flexible manner. Our virtual office allows me to check email, travel and work from places around the globe, sending photos of leopards from Kenya, blue-footed boobies from the Galapagos, gorilla families from Rwanda, and our cats taking over my home office while our other consultants are sharing photos of their grandchildren. What people need to understand about my “job”, however, is that everything I do is a team effort. Everything I write reflects input from ASTDD members, consultants and national partners. So, this award reflects that team effort and is dedicated to all of you who help me learn something new and magical every day.
Fluoridation Special Merit Award
Barbara Gooch, DMD, MPH
Nominated by Kip Duchon - I nominate Dr. Barbara F. Gooch to receive the organization’s Fluoridation Merit Award, for her outstanding leadership in revision of the 1962 Public Health Service (PHS) Recommendations for the concentration of fluoride in drinking water to prevent dental caries. Barbara is the Associate Director for Science for CDC’s Division of Oral Health.
The project proved particularly complex, given the many layers of review, i.e., 27 members of the Federal Inter-Agency Panel, 3 peer review scientists from outside government, more than 19,000 public comments, and multiple scientists and administrators from participating agencies and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The total number of professionals involved in this effort exceeded 100 persons. Dr. Gooch’s role, representing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), required that she reconcile those multiple perspectives while maintaining scientific rigor, often a narrow path that demanded repeated reviews of the literature. Although accumulated science had suggested a need for this revision for years, Dr. Gooch’s reasoned, patient leadership proved essential to accomplishing the task; she managed the four-plus years of work with poise and integrity, as well as an unwavering focus on documentation supported by science.
The revised recommendation does not represent her only contribution to fluoride science, however. Dr. Gooch served on a number of panels that conducted evidence-based reviews prior to making recommendations, or reviewed products of such groups: 1) American Dental Association (ADA) panel on infants and fluoride; 2) ADA panel on topical fluoride use; 3) Original work group on oral health of the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF); 4) Most recent updates by the CPSTF; 5) ASTDD Best Practices (for community water fluoridation, as well as other interventions); and 6) CDC 2001 MMWR, that outlined recommendations for fluoride use in the United States. In addition, she has responded to urgent requests for answers to focused questions, e.g., the impact of community water fluoridation on members of racial and ethnic minority groups. She often serves as a subject matter expert, interviewed by local and national reporters on fluoride use.
Although this body of contributions to fluoride science remains impressive, it does not represent her only focus on scientific accuracy and the translation of current knowledge into practice recommendations supported by literature published in peer-reviewed journals. Over her 25-year career at CDC, she led, or participated in, efforts that accomplished similar, sound research on HIV and dentistry (she was one of two dentists who participated in the Florida investigation); infection control in clinical dental practice; and school-based and school-linked dental sealant programs (to name just three . . .).
Dr. Gooch’s professional credentials include: 1) Dental degree from Harvard School of Dental Medicine; 2) MPH awarded by the University of Minnesota; 3) Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship in Health Services Research at the University of California, Los Angeles; and 4) Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Public Health.
Given her key role in accomplishing publication of the revised PHS Recommendation, and its importance in defining community water fluoridation practice in the United States during the coming years, Dr. Barbara Gooch is a logical, excellent choice to receive the ASTDD Fluoridation Merit Award.
Fluoridation Special Merit Award
Judith A. Feinstein, MSPH
Nominated by Brad Whistler, DMD, and Rebecca King, DDS, MPH - We are pleased to nominate Judith Feinstein for this year’s Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors’ Special Merit Award for Community Water Fluoridation. Judy has served over 36 years in public health, with 18 years as Dental Director for the State of Maine. Her responsibilities include program management and development, and monitoring legislation. Judy has been the project director for a number of federal grants, including a state oral health program infrastructure and capacity-building cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Judy has moderated, coordinated or presented numerous sessions on a variety of fluoride topics, including fluoridation workshops held in conjunction with the National Oral Health Conference, and other oral health issues at state, regional and national meetings. She has chaired the ASTDD Fluorides Committee for the last twelve years.
Judy has been heavily involved with educational activities related to community water fluoridation in Maine. She has participated in a number of discussions and forums on the advantages and benefits, legal and logistical issues of fluoridation in Maine in areas including the Great Salt Bay Sanitary District water supply, Bangor, Somerset County, Damariscotta/Newcastle and the Kennebunk Kennebunkport & Wells Water District. Judy was on a public forum countering Michael Connet of the Fluoride Action Network.
Working with Judy on the ASTDD Fluorides Committee and as fellow state dental directors, we developed a tremendous respect for Judy. Meeting her many years ago, we were astonished to learn that she did not have the “traditional” dental training that most of us have. Judy holds a Master's degree in public health from the University of Massachusetts and a Bachelor's degree in sociology from Beloit College. Yet she navigates dental public health situations, particularly those related to challenges to fluoridation, with great knowledge, poise and confidence, while periodically modestly informing folks that she is “not a dentist or dental hygienist.”
In her role as Chair of the ASTDD Fluorides Committee, Judy has patiently and steadfastly led and facilitated the committee to develop policy papers on community water fluoridation and other fluoride products, yearly work-plans for the committee and prepared the minutes from the meetings. She compiled and presented the Fluoridation Awards at NOHC. Her influence on states’ fluoride policy is immeasurable!
Public health leadership roles in supporting water fluoridation can be difficult, time consuming and emotionally draining. This is all the more reason why it is appropriate to acknowledge Judy’s long-time role in supporting fluoridation through her leadership on the ASTDD Fluorides Committee, work with other national groups related to water fluoridation and support provided to state dental public health programs. We urge you to select Judy Feinstein for this Special Merit Award.
Acceptance remarks - Judith Feinstein, MSPH: To be recognized two years in a row by professional colleagues is a tremendous compliment, both professionally and personally, and I am honored to receive this award. It is also, in truth, very humbling. Last year, I wrote that over the years of working in Maine’s Oral Health Program, in the process of learning my job and gaining what amounts to functional literacy in a new culture – dental public health – I realized that for all intents and purposes, I’d fallen in love with the work and our common commitment to integrate oral health into overall health, to focus on policies and programs that emphasize disease prevention, and to increase access to care. That’s still true.
Working with an amazing group of dedicated people, the Fluorides Committee, to promote water fluoridation, and our efforts working through ASTDD for all of you, across the country, has certainly been part of that work. The nomination that resulted in this award today noted that supporting water fluoridation can be difficult, time-consuming and emotionally draining. For me, this work has also provided practice in community organizing and communications, and a review of psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and economics, not to mention civics, and more basic science than I could have ever guessed. I didn’t know anything about water fluoridation until I started working in Maine’s Oral Health Program. On my second or third day on the job, my boss took me to a planning meeting for a community water fluoridation campaign. It was quite an orientation, and the campaign was successful.
As a non-clinician and a social scientist by training, I’ve relied on so many people in ASTDD – my colleagues from across the country, at the ADA and the CDC, along with our newer partners such as the Children’s Dental Health Project, the Campaign for Dental Health, and the Pew Children’s Dental Health Project, to assure that I had the best information available to me, whether in my work at home in Maine or to support me in supporting the ASTDD Fluorides Committee and the work we do – working for all of us. I want to thank all of you for that, and particularly “my” Fluorides Committee, who totally surprised me with this award. I am grateful to them for their trust in me for all of these years.
I do have some wonderfully awesome company in previous awardees, and am also delighted to be sharing this year’s award with Dr. Barbara Gooch. Last, I want to echo one of this year’s Academy Award winners, who advised his peers to thank their parents. My parents taught me to do my best, to be honest, and to care about what happens to other people. They are long gone now, but I can still thank them for their teaching, and I thank you again for this award.
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