Preventing and controlling oral and pharyngeal cancer. Recommendations from a National Strategic Planning Conference.

In August 1996, CDC convened a national conference to develop strategies for preventing and controlling oral and pharyngeal cancer in the United States. The conference, which was cosponsored by the National Institute of Dental Research of the National Institutes of Health and the American Dental Association, included 125 experts in oral and pharyngeal cancer prevention, treatment, and research; both the private and public sectors were represented. Participants at the conference developed recommendations concerning advocacy, collaboration, and coalition building; public health policy; public education; professional education and practice; and data collection, evaluation, and research. A follow-up meeting consisting of selected participants of the 1996 conference was held in September 1997. During this meeting, changes that had occurred in the political and scientific arenas since the 1996 conference were considered, and 10 recommended strategies from the conference were selected for priority implementation. These 10 strategies were to a) establish a mechanism to implement and monitor the recommended strategies developed during the conference; b) urge oral health professionals to become more actively involved in community health; c) require instruction in preventing and controlling tobacco and alcohol use at all levels of training in dental, medical, nursing, and other related health-care disciplines; d) encourage Medicaid, Medicare, traditional insurance plans, and managed-care entities to consider making oral cancer examinations an integral part of comprehensive physical and oral examinations; e) designate federal funding for a national program of oral cancer prevention, early detection, and control; f) after assessing local needs, develop, implement, and evaluate statewide models to educate all relevant groups; g) develop and conduct a national promotional campaign to raise public awareness of oral cancer and its link to tobacco use and heavy alcohol consumption; h) develop health-care curricula that require competency in prevention, diagnosis, and multidisciplinary management of oral and pharyngeal cancer; i) sponsor and promote continuing education for health-care professionals on the multidisciplinary management of all phases of oral cancer and its sequelae; and j) strengthen organizational approaches to reducing oral cancer by developing organized cooperative and collaborative arrangements, funding formal centers, and involving commercial firms. CDC will use these recommended strategies to develop programs to reduce the burden of oral and pharyngeal cancer in the United States. Through the Oral Cancer Roundtable, a group of conference and meeting participants, CDC will communicate to interested agencies, organizations, and state health departments ways in which they can implement elements of the national plan. The Roundtable will help CDC track the efforts and progress of these groups.